SPP staff are working with both MISO and Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI) to develop coordinated system plans (CSPs) in the search for joint projects, staff told the RTO’s Seams Steering Committee last week.
Neil Robertson told the committee during its meeting Thursday that the RTOs are “not necessarily” on the same page as to what the 2020 CSP looks like, but that SPP would like to conduct a study similar to last year’s. The RTOs studied potential interregional projects using their regional models in 2019. However, as when they collaborated on CSPs in 2016 and 2018, SPP and MISO were unable to reach any agreements.
The wild card, Robertson said, is the limit MISO faces on regional directional transfers (RDT) between its northern and southern regions over SPP’s system.
Under the terms of a 2015 settlement agreement with SPP and other parties, MISO is limited to 1,000 MW of contracted, firm transmission capacity, with access to additional non-firm service capped at 3,000 MW in southbound flows and 2,500 MW northbound. MISO is keen on modifying the RDT arrangement when the settlement agreement expires in February 2021, and both RTOs have or will be conducting studies on the constraints. (See Interregional Projects May Become Reality for SPP, MISO.)
“We’re trying to figure out how the RDT study melds with doing a typical CSP,” Robertson said.
The SSC endorsed staff’s recommendation to endorse the MISO RDT as a target area for additional analysis in SPP’s Integrated Transmission Planning (ITP) assessment. The Economic Studies Working Group has already endorsed the recommendation.
Planning staffs from both RTOs will hold a March 10 conference call to review “annual issues,” a precursor to a joint study.
Meanwhile, SPP and AECI are drafting the scope document for a potential CSP, which would use reliability models from the RTO’s 2020 ITP and possibly include economic planning analysis. Their Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee plans to meet in March, with the hope of producing a final CSP report in July.
SPP to File AECI Project Costs with FERC
SPP is also working with AECI to finalize an agreement, to be filed with FERC, over a 345-kV upgrade project in Kansas and Missouri. The $152 million, 105-mile Wolf Creek-Blackberry upgrade was approved last month as a competitive project within the RTO’s 2020 Transmission Expansion Plan. (See “Directors Approve $545M Transmission Expansion Plan,” SPP Board of Directors/MC Briefs: Jan. 28, 2020.)
Because AECI is not a transmission owner under SPP’s Tariff, the agreement is necessary to outline project specifics and define cost allocation for AECI’s work. FERC’s approval would allow SPP to allocate funds compensating AECI for its work.
Once these steps are finalized, SPP is expected to put the project out for bids. The 2019 ITP assessment identified the project’s need date as Jan. 1, 2026.
M2M Settlements Reach $70M
Another month of multimillion market-to-market (M2M) settlements has pushed MISO’s tab with SPP past the $70 million mark.
Temporary and permanent flowgates on the RTOs’ seam were binding for 1,008 hours during December. That resulted in a $2.85 million settlement in SPP’s favor, pushing the overall total to $70.96 million since March 2015.
Under the M2M process, the RTO with the greater economic dispatch addresses market flows.
— Tom Kleckner
