FERC on Wednesday approved a cost-and-usage agreement between SPP and Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (AECI) that could result in the RTO’s first competitive project under Order 1000 (ER20-2707, ER20-2708).
The letter order accepted the terms and conditions governing the construction, ownership, operation and cost for the installation of 345-kV terminal equipment at AECI’s existing Blackberry substation, the endpoint for SPP’s 109-mile, 345-kV Wolf Creek-Blackberry transmission project. It also accepts Tariff revisions to include the substation’s construction costs in each SPP transmission owner’s respective annual transmission revenue requirement.
“We were glad to see that outcome,” Neil Robertson, SPP’s interregional relations senior engineer, said in breaking the news Wednesday morning to the Seams Steering Committee.
The Wolf Creek-Blackberry project is expected to cost $152 million. SPP members will fund the line according to load-ratio share. The RTO’s Board of Directors last month lifted a suspension on the project and authorized the Oversight Committee to create an industry expert panel (IEP) to evaluate responses to a request for proposals, which staff have since issued. (See “Board Lifts Suspension on Competitive Upgrade,” SPP Board of Directors/MC Briefs: Sept. 22, 2020.)
SPP awarded its first competitive project in 2016 to Mid-Kansas Electric, but the project was later canceled because load projections dropped over time. (See SPP Cancels First Competitive Tx Project, Citing Falling Demand Projections.)
A third competitive project has already been evaluated by an IEP and will be brought before the board for its consideration in October.
