By Amanda Durish Cook

CARMEL, Ind. — A special task team convened to examine the cause of an apparent shortfall in MISO transmission capacity is seeking stakeholder input on what measures the RTO could undertake to support renewable generation.

During a Coordinated Planning Process Task Team meeting Thursday, MISO Senior Manager of Economic Planning Neil Shah said the RTO is compiling a list of ways to increase consistency between its generator interconnection and annual Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP) planning processes. (See MISO Mulls Linking Interconnection, MTEP Planning.)

Stakeholders have suggested MISO better align the timelines of interconnection, MTEP and reliability planning and ensure the studies draw on more similar data, including dispatch assumptions.

The list will go before MISO’s Planning Advisory Committee for further consideration in March. The PAC could assign the issue to one of its subgroups, such as the Planning Subcommittee or Interconnection Process Working Group, for solution development.

Stakeholders — especially renewable proponents and state regulators — have repeatedly said MISO is unfairly relying on interconnection customers to finance new transmission capacity under the pretext of network upgrades. They contend the RTO may be neglecting a responsibility to get major transmission projects approved.

Many stakeholders have questioned why interconnection studies show the need for expensive transmission upgrades when MTEP studies do not. (See Renewables Group Calls for MISO West Tx Construction.)

“Under the current process, MISO economic planning assumes significant expansion of renewable generation but does not necessarily include projects likely to be required to accommodate the interconnection of such generation,” WPPI Energy said in comments to the RTO.

Transmission owners also recently asked the RTO to address the disparity between its generation interconnection and MTEP planning processes.

Clean Grid Alliance’s Rhonda Peters has characterized the situation as a “stalemate” where generation developers are saddled with major transmission upgrades they can’t afford, while MISO has not initiated another multi-value project portfolio since its first one in 2011. The 17-project, $6.7 billion multi-value transmission expansion in northern and central states is nearly complete. MISO has estimated that the portfolio can enable about 26 GW of new wind generation by 2031.

In early January, Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois reported it energized the $267 million, 96-mile Mark Twain 345 kV transmission project in northeast Missouri. The development leaves the 100-mile Cardinal-Hickory Creek line across southwest Wisconsin to Iowa the last of the MVPs in line for a groundbreaking ceremony.

During the task team meeting, ITC Holdings’ David Grover asked if market efficiency projects and generator interconnections could be examined in unison so projects with multiple benefits can be put forward.

“I think that one thing that we’re hearing that’s clear … is our different planning processes are siloed,” MISO Director of Planning Jeff Webb said.

Reducing the Delay

The 521 projects in MISO’s current interconnection queue represent nearly 82 GW of capacity. The Central region (parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana) contains the most capacity at nearly 28 GW spread over 160 projects, while MISO West (Minnesota, Iowa, parts of the Dakotas and western Wisconsin) contains 23.4 GW at 154 projects. The RTO processed about 70 generation interconnection agreements in 2019.

Renewable energy developers and advocates have argued that it’s MISO West that could use fresh transmission capacity to facilitate new wind generation. Possible regional projects, including those categorized under reliability, interconnection and MTEP, will be the subject of a West subregional planning meeting this Thursday.

MISO is currently experiencing about a four-month delay in its affected-system studies with SPP, affecting the West region. Staff said they were looking into hiring outside consultants to speed up the process.

“We’re trying to lessen this delay in any way we can,” Resource Utilization Project Manager Jesse Phillips said at the Interconnection Process Working Group’s meeting Jan. 14.

In responding to criticisms at stakeholder meetings, MISO officials have repeatedly pointed out that historically, only about 20% of generation projects clear the interconnection queue.

Last year, a possible market efficiency project that could have paved the way for more wind to flourish in the Upper Midwest was removed from the yearly transmission package.

MTEP 19 excluded the Helena-to-Hampton Corners 345-kV second-circuit project that could have alleviated congestion in southern Minnesota, at an initial 4.22:1 benefit-to-cost ratio based on MISO estimates. However, MISO’s study process assumed that yet-to-be-built network upgrades would alleviate the congestion. Additionally, once the RTO removed forecasted wind generation from robustness testing, the project lost value.

EDF Renewable Energy’s Alex Borden said MISO’s MTEP 33 modeling significantly underestimated wind expansion. He questioned why wind siting was included in the front end of MTEP 19 modeling, then “effectively discarded in the robustness test scenarios.”

“If nothing else, MISO should open the robustness testing to a more vetted process and discussion,” he wrote in August, as more wind generation developers withdrew projects from the queue.

MISO planning staff have said the development of new 15-year MTEP futures featuring more aggressive renewable predictions — paired with its proposal to lower the cost allocation threshold on market efficiency projects from 345 kV to 230 kV — should give rise to approval of more major lines in the footprint.

The RTO will host another retooling session on the futures Feb. 13.

Meanwhile, the 10 utilities reunited for CapX2050 will next month release first results from a study examining Minnesota, eastern North Dakota and South Dakota, and western Wisconsin. The study may result in some transmission projects being built in the area. (See Minnesota Utilities Reunite for CapX2050 Study.)