FERC is expected to rule on SPP’s proposed tariff revisions adding a winter season resource adequacy requirement (RAR) during its monthly open meeting March 20 (ER24-2397). 

The commission in November 2023 rejected the proposed revisions, finding SPP’s proposal did not contain any requirement that the resources included in load-responsible entities’ workbooks are expected to be available. FERC also said the grid operator had not demonstrated it is reasonable to permit LREs to rely on resources that are not expected to be available to satisfy their winter season RARs. 

SPP filed a response June 28, asking for an effective date of Jan. 1, 2025. 

The RTO’s Board of Directors approved the winter season obligation in August 2023. (See “Board, RSC Endorse Winter Obligation,” SPP Board/Members Committee Briefs: July 24-25, 2023.) 

In February, the board approved a 38% planning reserve margin for the 2029 winter season. The 2029 summer season has a 17% PRM. 

The commission also has placed on its agenda an order that may be related to requests for rehearing by MISO and Montana-Dakota Utilities of a 2024 order that denied their complaints over a North Dakota cryptomining facility’s burdening a jointly owned flowgate with SPP (EL24-61). 

MISO and MDU sought to have market-to-market coordination on the line lifted after the Atlas Power Data Center added a 200-MW load to an SPP load pocket in northwestern North Dakota. They maintain that congestion management should not extend beyond SPP’s responsibility. (See MISO Argues to FERC for 2nd Look at Crypto-stressed Flowgate Management.) 

MISO in January filed a review petition with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (25-1011) after FERC denied rehearing requests in November 2024, saying they “will be addressed in a future order.” MISO says the “future order” has not yet been issued in any of the underlying proceedings. 

FERC’s agenda also includes: 

• •  A response to SPP’s compliance filing in its effort to facilitate RTO membership for nine Western Interconnection entities. The commission found the grid operator’s tariff for its Western RTO to be deficient in October 2024 (ER24-2185). (See FERC Issues Deficiency Letter for SPP’s RTO West Tariff.) FERC asked for further clarifications on six issues, including transitioning the expansion members’ transmission service request queues into SPP’s existing transmission service study processes and how LMPs on both sides of the West DC ties will inform how the RTO optimizes the interties’ use. SPP is trying to be the first grid operator with markets in both the Western and Eastern Interconnections. RTO West is scheduled to go live in April 2026. 

• • An order related to SPP’s request to incorporate a mark-to-auction collateral requirement for its transmission congestion rights markets. The RTO asked for an effective date of May 1 to allow for enough time to add the collateral requirement before the TCR annual auction (ER24-2906).