Environmental groups are further pressing their opposition to MISO‘s and SPP’s fast-track studies for primarily fossil fuel projects, challenging both in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in a pair of lawsuits.

The petitions for review, filed with the court Nov. 18, contest FERC’s separate approvals of MISO’s Expedited Resource Addition Study and SPP’s Expedited Resource Adequacy Study (ERAS) processes, allowing load-responsible entities to nominate qualified projects for fast-track reviews to maintain resource adequacy.

Earthjustice filed the MISO petition on behalf of environmental groups Clean Wisconsin and Natural Resources Defense Council. It was joined in the filing by the Sierra Club.

Separately, the Sierra Club filed a petition with the court against SPP’s “unnecessary” proposal. The organization said the ERAS proposal favors gas generation at the expense of wind, solar and battery storage projects.

The filings came one day after the Sierra Club and NRDC, represented by Earthjustice, were party to a similar request to the D.C. Circuit over SPP’s accreditation methodology for clean energy resources. (See related story, SPP’s ELCC Methodology Contested at Appeals Court.)

The groups said MISO’s interconnection-queue express lanes bestow an “undue advantage” for fossil fuel generation, with ratepayers funding the grid upgrades needed to accommodate them. They asked for a reversal of FERC’s approval order.

They argued FERC incorrectly brushed aside the potential for the fast lanes to aggravate wait times and complicate studies for regularly queued resources.

“FERC is letting grid operators like MISO rewrite the rule book to the benefit of fossil fuel and data center companies, and at the expense of everyone else,” Ada Statler, a senior associate attorney at Earthjustice, said in a statement. “FERC is sidelining cheaper clean energy projects and allowing utilities to pass on the higher costs of methane gas to other customers, despite its legal mandate to ensure just and reasonable rates.”

Caroline Reiser, an NRDC senior attorney, said the fast lanes create an environment where a handful of mostly gas plants can cut in line to their financial benefit.

Sierra Club Senior Attorney Greg Wannier added that MISO is “spending too much time trying to benefit monopoly utilities and the gas industry at the expense of clean energy and independent producers.”

The Sierra Club said MISO’s process allows fast-tracked projects to “pass on significant upgrade costs to residential customers and to skip over clean energy projects that have been waiting for years to connect to the grid.” It argued that the clean energy waiting in MISO’s 175-GW interconnection queue is more affordable than the 18 GW of gas generation under study in the fast lane.

The Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council objected to MISO’s design while it was pending before FERC. (See MISO Fast Lane Proposal Disadvantages IPPs, Retail Choice States, Critics Tell FERC.)

MISO has received 49 project applications representing more than 26 GW for its expedited queue. Most proposals entail natural gas-fired units. (See MISO Selects 10 Gen Proposals at 5.3 GW in 1st Expedited Queue Class.)

MISO Vice President of System Planning Aubrey Johnson said during a Nov. 11 Entergy State Regional Committee meeting that MISO believes the fast lane already has met its objectives to accelerate resource additions.

Altogether, MISO’s temporary process would enable 68 projects, with 10 slots reserved for submissions from independent power producers and eight reserved for entities serving MISO’s retail choice load in downstate Illinois and a percentage of Michigan.

Sierra Club Appeals SPP ERAS

The Sierra Club said that despite no “solid evidence” of a capacity shortage, SPP claimed its ERAS proposal was necessary to address rising capacity demands. It said SPP has a history of favoring thermal projects over renewable energy and that the ERAS process’ structure would make it virtually impossible for wind or solar facilities to participate in this new process.

The organization said the ERAS allows the fast-tracked projects to pass upgrade costs to residential customers and clean energy projects that have been waiting for years to connect to the grid. It said it previously alleged at FERC that SPP “improperly” dismissed the potential for fast track to exacerbate challenges in processing and connecting the rest of the RTO’s queued resources.

SPP spokesperson Seth Blomeley told RTO Insider that staff are reviewing the Sierra Club’s filing. “We remain confident in the merits of our plan, which was approved by FERC,” he said in an email.

The Sierra Club argues that SPP claims ERAS is necessary to meet increased demand from data centers but that SPP suggested in other regulatory contexts that other reforms to the queue would address resource shortfalls.

The Sierra Club pointed to Duke University research that found new demand for electricity from data centers and other large loads can be flexed to avoid building expensive new gas plants while maintaining electric grid reliability.

FERC approved SPP’s ERAS proposal in July. It was conditional on making a compliance filing within 30 days of the order’s issuance (ER25-2296). (See FERC Approves SPP’s ERAS Process, Accreditation.)

The Sierra Club’s rehearing request was rejected in November, “deemed to have been denied” after no FERC action was taken.