FERC has approved an SPP tariff change that adds real-time dispatchable interchange transactions to its Integrated Marketplace, extending the current day-ahead market dispatchable transaction model into the real-time balancing market.

The commission said in its Dec. 10 order that the proposed design will allow more economic dispatch by enabling price-sensitive, dispatchable interchange transactions in the real-time market. It directed SPP to make a compliance filing establishing the effective date, currently set at a placeholder of Dec. 31, 9998 (ER25-2753).

The RTO’s Market Monitoring Unit and the Western Area Power Administration both protested the tariff change, saying it could result in market harm through structural market power and transmission withholding. WAPA added that the lack of offer validation for real-time dispatchable transactions (RTDTs) beyond a $2,000/MWh cap could also lead to market power.

FERC found the protests alleging market power issues to be “speculative.” It said the MMU did not provide additional explanation beyond high-level arguments of the behavior or its potential to increase. The commission did note that SPP said it will continue to work with the MMU to address instances of market power and that the Monitor could refer the behavior to FERC.

The MMU said also that SPP’s proposal will remove barriers to participation in the real-time market and may increase market efficiencies across seams by reducing the real-time price volatility associated with the grid operator’s fixed interchange transactions. It said it couldn’t support or oppose the tariff change due to missing details in the RTDTs.

The marketplace’s participants use the interchange transactions to import and export energy out of the SPP balancing authority area. The transactions can be fixed or dispatchable in the day-ahead market and are only fixed in the real-time market.

WAPA said that while it supports the RTDT concept, it thinks SPP’s proposal will harm reserve levels, intraday-reliability unit commitment and ramp distribution between hourly market products and the proposed RTDTs. The federal power agency said the RTO had not yet shared with stakeholders its proposal to address ramp-capability issues and contended the use of non-firm transmission service and hourly non-firm dynamic interchange scheduling also creates reliability concerns.

FERC rejected the parties’ other protests, including the MMU’s claim that SPP’s proposal was missing key details. “We find that the record before us has sufficient information for us to render a decision on the proposal,” the commissioners wrote.

Commission Nixes Accreditation Rehearing

In a Dec. 12 order, FERC rejected rehearing requests by several public interest organizations (PIOs) and clean energy associations over its approval of SPP’s modifications on capacity accreditation (ER24-1317, ER24-2953).

Citing the court decision in Allegheny Defense Project v. FERC, the commission said the requests may be deemed denied by operation of law. However, FERC modified the discussion in the accreditation order and continued to reach the same result in the proceeding.

The commission in July approved SPP’s performance-based accreditation (PBA) for conventional resources and effective load carrying capability (ELCC) methodologies for traditional and renewable resources, respectively. (See “ELCC, PBA Methodology Approved,” FERC Approves SPP’s ERAS Process, Accreditation.)

The PIOs and clean energy groups argued FERC erred in the order by relying on its finding that the proposed accreditation methodologies would be improvements over the status quo. They said also the commission accepted a proposal that is unduly discriminatory and accepted revisions that provided an insufficient amount of detail on the loss-of-load expectation (LOLE) model, violating the rule of reason.

FERC agreed with the protesters that “mere improvement” over the status quo is “insufficient to render a tariff filing necessarily just and reasonable.” It said it instead found and continued to find that the proposed accreditation methodologies are just and reasonable under the Federal Power Act’s Section 205 standard.

The commission also said it found that SPP’s revisions provide a “sufficient level of detail” on the use of the LOLE study under the rule of reason.