SPP: No Need for 2018 Joint Study with AECI

SPP staff told stakeholders last week that the RTO will not conduct a joint transmission planning study with Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. this year, saying they were unable to find any “reasonable projects on either side of line.”

“The next shot will be in 2020,” said SPP’s Clint Savoy during a June 21 conference call of the SPP-AECI Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee. “We will have plenty of time to get our hands around what we want to look at in the next study.”

A needs assessment along the seams identified more than 200 violations, but most were eliminated through model corrections or system adjustments, or because they were invalid contingencies. Most AECI violations were voltage issues, SPP said.

The RTO is proposing that one identified project, a 161-kV transmission line, be included in its 2018 near-term assessment.

A final report will be published at the end of July.

SPP and AECI have been performing joint studies every other year since 2010, as outlined in their joint operating agreement. Their only success was in 2016, when their study identified two projects near Springfield, Mo.: a new 345/161-kV transformer at AECI’s Morgan Substation and uprate to an existing 161-kV Morgan-to-Brookline transmission line, and installation of a new 345-kV 50-MVAR reactor at City Utilities of Springfield’s existing Brookline substation.

SPP would have been responsible for $17.1 million of the projects’ estimated $18.75 million cost, but FERC last year rejected the proposed cost allocation for both projects. The Brookline reactor project is now being addressed through the RTO’s regional planning process as part of the 2018 near-term assessment, and the Morgan transformer project is being prepared for another filing at FERC.

AECI, based in Springfield, is owned by and provides wholesale power to six regional generation and transmission cooperatives.

— Tom Kleckner