The new kid on the block, SPP’s Western Interconnection reliability coordinator, stepped into the fray when CAISO’s RC West experienced shortages this summer.

During the RTO’s joint quarterly stakeholder meeting Monday, Bruce Rew, senior vice president of operations, said the Western RC assisted with load sheds of up to about 1,000 MW Aug. 14-19, when CAISO, faced with energy shortages, first issued energy emergency alerts and then instituted rolling blackouts. (See Theories Abound over California Blackouts Cause.)

“We did help, as best we could,” Rew said. “We worked closely with California and the RC West system as much as possible.”

SPP’s RC ensured all transmission and generation was available to the interconnection during the crisis. The RC did have to declare its own EEAs because of concerns about meeting reserves obligations, Rew said, but it did not shed load in its own nine balancing authorities.

The RTO’s Western RC has only been online since December 2019. It will add 3.45 GW of generating capacity to its footprint next year when Gridforce Energy Management joins. (See SPP Expands its Western RC Footprint.)

Closer to home, Rew said SPP’s peak load this summer was down slightly from the previous two years as it recovered from the pandemic’s early effects. The largest spread came in early September when peak load was around 37 GW, compared to more than 45 GW in 2019 and almost 43 GW in 2018. Rew said mild weather and other issues were responsible for much of the drop.

The grid operator remains on track to have wind be its No. 1 fuel source this year. It added 3.6 GW of registered wind resources during the third quarter, bringing the total to 27.4 GW.

“We’re a year ahead of schedule,” CEO Barbara Sugg said.

With an increased reliance on wind energy comes a need for improved forecasting, Sugg said. The RTO’s wind and solar forecasting error averages both improved during the third quarter from a year ago. The wind average was 3.80%, down from 4.54%, and the solar average was 4.70%, down from 5.66%.

Rew said SPP’s Integrated Marketplace now has 264 participants, 177 of which are financial-only and 87 that own assets.

In other quarterly updates, a Strategic Planning Committee group picking up where a working group left off in trying to modify SPP’s congestion-hedging practices by adding counterflow optimization is “trying to determine a path forward on this very complex issue,” Director Graham Edwards said. He said the team will be reaching out to stakeholders before reporting back to the SPC in January. (See SPP SPC Takes on Congestion Hedging Issues.)

Director Mark Crisson, chair of the Strategic and Creative Re-engineering of Integrated Planning Team (SCRIPT) responsible for re-engineering SPP’s transmission-planning processes, said the group has developed a scope and created four sub-teams to handle much of the work. The SCRIPT plans to bring a final report to the Board of Directors for its consideration and approval in October 2021.

SD’s Fiegen to Lead RSC in 2021

The Regional State Committee approved the nomination of South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner Kristie Fiegen as its next president, effective in January. The committee also voted to have North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Randy Christmann serve as its next vice president and Texas Public Utility Commission Chair DeAnn Walker as secretary and treasurer.

Outgoing President and Nebraska Power Review Board Member Dennis Grennan offered to virtually hand over the gavel to Fiegen following the meeting, but she had other ideas.

“You can drive on up,” Fiegen said, teasingly offering to take Grennan pheasant hunting if he did.

“I’ll leave after the board meeting,” Grennan responded.

The RSC will also welcome Arkansas Public Service Commission Chair Ted Thomas next year. He will replace his PSC colleague Kimberly O’Guinn, who is taking his seat on the Organization of MISO States.

The committee also approved its 2021 budget, despite concerns over a travel and meetings budget that was trimmed by 38.7% from the year before. The budget totals $326,100, but travel and meeting expenses have been cut from $280,497 to $172,000.

SPP has recently looked at alternating the quarterly governance meetings between virtual and in-person to reduce costs. Taking advantage of what it has learned from conducting seven months of meetings over the internet or the phone, the RTO will make that change next year.

“I would like to keep travel as is,” Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Mike Francis said. “It really helps my commission more if we are meeting in person. I really think we’ll figure out how to handle” the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I don’t disagree,” Grennan said. “The sooner we can get back to where at least a portion of our meetings are face to face, the better.”

CAWG to Pause Pricing Zone Work

The RSC directed its Cost Allocation Working Group to remain focused on decoupling SPP’s Schedule 9 and 11 transmission pricing zones while it waits on a white paper from a competing task force.

Oklahoma Corporation Commission staffer Jason Chaplin said the CAWG has been unable to reach consensus on the issue, saying there is a “slight lean” toward keeping the RTO’s existing methodology. The Holistic Integrated Tariff Team (HITT) had tasked the working group with separating the two pricing zones and allowing the creation of larger Schedule 11 pricing zones and/or Schedule 9 sub-zones, taking into consideration new deliverability sub-regions, distribution factor calculations, and market and power flows.

“With this issue, addressed appropriately, we would solve the zonal placement issue,” Nebraska Public Power District’s Tom Kent, who chaired the HITT, told the RSC. “I don’t want us to lose momentum in getting this issue right.”

CAWG Chair John Krajewski, who consults with the Nebraska Power Review Board, suggested the group slow down its work, “so slow, it’s almost a pause.”

The group’s work has been hamstrung while it waits on a deliverability report from the NRIS/ERIS Deliverability Task Force (NEDTF), which the HITT asked to develop policies creating a balance between energy resource interconnection service (ERIS), network resource interconnection service (NRIS), generator-interconnection products and long-term firm transmission service.

The NEDTF’s white paper, which includes a recommendation to replace NRIS with a new capacity resource interconnection service (CRIS), was only approved by the Markets and Operations Policy Committee earlier in October. The task force says CRIS would add deliverability to the existing NRIS product and provide a clearer distinction between the two services. (See “Interconnection Improvements,” SPP MOPC Briefs: Oct. 13-14, 2020.)

The SPP board would also approve the document the day after the RSC meeting.

“If we pause to do more data and do a meaningful analysis, that makes sense,” Kansas Corporation Commissioner Andrew French.

The CAWG agreed to provide a new work plan in November and updates to the RSC in January and April. The work was originally to have been completed in July.

The RSC did endorse the CAWG’s recommendation to implement previously approved language that creates a narrow process to regionally allocate costs for transmission projects between 100 and 300 kV primarily used to move power out of the local transmission pricing zones.

New Mexico Public Regulation Commissioner Jeff Byrd opposed RTWG RR422, while Francis, Walker and OCC Commissioner Dana Murphy abstained.

The MOPC approved the measure during its October meeting. (See “Some Byway Costs to be Allocated Regionally,” SPP MOPC Briefs: Oct. 13-14, 2020.)