FERC has denied a waiver request by MISO and SPP to make changes to the Coordinated System Plan (CSP) under their joint operating agreement, saying it is not the “appropriate vehicle” to improve the process.  

The July 2 finding was made without prejudice, allowing the RTOs to submit proposed revisions to their CSP in a future Section 205 filing under the Federal Power Act (ER25-943). 

The grid operators filed the request in January, asking the commission to allow them to incorporate multiple scenarios in a single 10-year model instead of the multiyear analysis required by their JOA. They also asked to use multiple benefit metrics to evaluate reliability and public policy interregional transmission projects rather than the agreement’s narrowly defined “cost avoidance of pre-existing regional projects.” (See MISO, SPP Ask FERC for JOA Waiver to Conduct More Meticulous Interregional Study.) 

MISO and SPP contended that previous CSP studies were unsuccessful in “developing solutions where both RTOs benefit” and “have not yielded any interregional projects” for more than a decade. 

FERC said the request did not meet the commission’s criteria for granting tariff waivers that: the applicant acted in good faith; the waiver is of limited scope; the waiver addresses a concrete problem; and the waiver does not harm third parties or have other undesirable consequences. 

The commission found the request was not limited in scope because waiving a multiyear analysis “would appear to relieve them of a discrete tariff obligation.” It said waiving the RTOs’ tariff obligation to evaluate the benefits of reliability and public policy interregional projects as the avoided cost of regional projects that address the same reliability or public policy issue is “a significant change to the CSP study scope.” 

FERC said the waiver request does not address a concrete problem because the grid operators did not show that expanding the study scope would address the problem they identified. “That is, the proposed expanded CSP study might not identify transmission solutions that meet [the RTOs’] selection criteria,” FERC said. 

The commission said it was unpersuaded by the grid operators’ claim that their waiver request is consistent with FERC precedent granting “waivers modifying transmission planning study requirements and timelines and addressing inefficient market outcomes.” The commissioners said those proceedings involved waiver requests of tariff deadlines to allow the applicant additional time to comply with a tariff requirement, not to change the requirement outright. 

Commissioner David Rosner dissented from the 2-1 vote. Commissioner Judy Chang did not participate. 

Rosner said he believed MISO and SPP satisfied the commission’s waiver criteria. Noting the CSP study has not yielded a project in more than 10 years, he said the proposal to waive two JOA provisions related to technical planning assumptions will “better tailor the study to their regional needs, making it more likely to yield useful results.” 

“The commission should not stand in the way of simple solutions that give MISO, SPP and their stakeholders flexibility to improve the accuracy of their study,” Rosner wrote. “The alternative compels MISO and SPP to commit resources towards an inefficient study and prevents the regions from identifying needed interregional transmission projects.” 

“As the dissent rightfully points out, the CSP studies have not yielded any interregional transmission solutions for more than a decade,” Chair Mark Christie and Commissioner Lindsay See said. “In other words, the current situation is not a surprise to either MISO or SPP, and the circumstances that led to this situation are not outside of their control. While we appreciate MISO’s and SPP’s desire to improve their CSP process, a waiver request is not the appropriate vehicle to achieve such an outcome.” 

The American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and International Transmission Co. filed comments supporting the MISO-SPP application. They said the waiver request would have yielded an expanded CSP study that would identify interregional projects that benefit both the MISO and SPP regions and would support a more reliable and efficient transmission system.