MISO and SPP on Monday announced a yearlong transmission study to identify projects with “comprehensive, cost-effective and efficient upgrades” after their staffs once again failed to agree on an interregional project this year.
The RTOs said the joint study will focus on solutions they believe will “offer benefits to both [the] interconnection customers and end-use consumers” of their members. The study’s expanded scope will include projects near the RTOs’ seam that support both organizations’ interconnection processes.
Cost allocation will be addressed “once there’s a better sense of the types of projects and benefits that might result,” an SPP spokesman said. Previous MISO-SPP studies that have evaluated interregional projects’ cost allocation have failed to produce any new transmission.
“A fundamental issue facing grid transformation is the lack of transmission at requested connection points,” SPP CEO Barbara Sugg said in a statement. “Working together, MISO and SPP can target those areas where there are mutual benefits on both sides of our [seam].”
In doing so, the RTOs tacitly acknowledged stakeholder frustration over their inability to identify joint projects under their Joint Operating Agreement. MISO in August all but admitted the grid operators will once again come up empty after a fourth joint study in six years. (See MISO, SPP Close to Ruling out Joint Projects Again.)
“[Stakeholders] have told us that we need a better solution that prioritizes projects that address these gaps,” MISO CEO John Bear said in a statement. “Collaborating in this way gives us the opportunity to explore potential improvements within our own interconnection processes while informing longer-term regional transmission planning efforts in both MISO and SPP.”
Clean Energy Groups Cheer
The American Wind Energy Association, Clean Grid Alliance and Advanced Power Alliance applauded the RTOs for what they labeled “a game changer.” The organizations released a joint statement that said the study will be a “new milestone” in coordination between the RTOs, their leadership, state regulators and other stakeholders.
“Working together, the two [RTOs] can enable and expedite needed transmission development on their seam and address related generation interconnection challenges,” the organizations said. “This forward-thinking partnership includes an aggressive, but achievable, timetable, and we pledge to provide any assistance necessary to support this effort. Coordinated transmission planning will allow consumers across the country to harness the economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy.”
The RTOs expect the joint study to begin in December and will include opportunities to share information with stakeholders and solicit their input. The grid operators’ respective boards will have to approve any identified projects before they can move forward, as the study will be done outside their tariffs.
Aubrey Johnson, MISO’s executive director of system planning and competitive transmission, told a meeting of the RTOs’ state regulators that some of the study’s details are still being worked out but that its initial focus will be identifying issues that have benefits and should be pursued.
“The effort is an attempt to perform an alternative approach to address the historical challenges in targeted areas of the seam,” Johnson told a meeting of the Organization of MISO States and SPP Regional State Committee’ Seams Liaison Committee. “It’s a little bit different from some of the things we’ve done under the JOA. We’re trying to do this outside all the other work we’ve done.”
SPP Vice President of Engineering Antoine Lucas told the committee that the study “creates some flexibility to see if there are some potential solutions … to get over the hurdles and challenges we’ve had in the JOA studies.”
