MISO and SPP staff last week began putting meat on the bones of their joint transmission study, much to the satisfaction of stakeholders disappointed by years of fruitless combined studies between the two RTOs.

The Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue Study attempts a different approach to identifying — and funding — interregional transmission projects that could solve congestion issues along the MISO-SPP seam. (See MISO, SPP to Conduct Targeted Transmission Study.)

The year-long study will focus on the seam between Nebraska and Kansas in the west and Iowa and Missouri in the east. Staff said the grid is at its capacity for new generator interconnections in that region, making the next iteration of network upgrades too costly for interconnection projects to proceed.

The RTOs hope to find more comprehensive, cost-effective and efficient upgrades than would otherwise be identified in the current interconnection queue process, where upgrades are identified in time sequence by one or the other RTO.

“We see the system in that specific area as getting saturated,” SPP’s Juliano Freitas said during a Dec. 11 teleconference with stakeholders from both RTOs. “We see a lot of problems in our studies related to congestion, voltage and terminal problems. More and more we see the costs going up when we try to interconnect new generation.

“We want solutions where both sides can see the benefits and agree to build,” he said. “We want solutions out of this study that can provide multiple values and eliminate the friction we sometimes have in these processes.”

That suits many stakeholders just fine.

“It’s an understatement to say we’re excited about this,” Omaha Public Power District’s Dan Lenihan said. “We’ve had persistent operational issues on the east area of the Nebraska-Iowa seam. You’d see four or five issues consistently on this seam consistently and persistently showing up as congestion issues. The seam’s planning models haven’t been able to accurately capture those, but this is maybe another avenue to tackle this.”

Clean Grid Alliance’s Natalie McIntire, a ubiquitous presence during MISO transmission discussions, said the joint study is “important work for both regions to do together.”

“We feel the way MISO and SPP has framed this study, to look at all the drivers, is a great way to look at this,” she said. “We’re really hoping that in considering the benefit analysis, you’re not just looking at the economic analysis, but the benefit to reliability and customers.”

Reducing Friction

By trying to resolve congestion issues in just one region, the RTOs’ staff is hopeful of identifying opportunities to eliminate “unnecessary friction” between processes and affected parties in the study and on an ongoing basis. The goal is to find solutions that provide multiple values capable of meeting both the needs of interconnection customers and providing benefits to load in both SPP and MISO.

The RTOs have conducted four coordinated system planning studies since 2014, but have been unable to agree on any projects, generally because of cost-allocation issues.

“We’re approaching this as a way to inform future planning efforts,” said SPP Vice President of Engineering Antoine Lucas. “We’re starting a little bit smaller. We’ll have some takeaways from this that we’ll be able to apply to other processes in the future, either along the seam or in our respective regions.”

“At the end of the day, if all we get out of this is couple of projects, it would be a success,” said Aubrey Johnson, MISO’s executive director of system planning and competitive transmission. “This shouldn’t be a one-time thing. We’ve got more problems out there, not just one area. We will see what we can learn and, in consultation with our stakeholders, improve our processes.”

Lucas and Johnson both said cost allocations will not be a part of this study.

“We want the focus to be on transmission needs without the distraction of what the cost allocation might be at some later point. If we’re able to do that, we can develop some solutions that generate value for y’all,” Lucas said, addressing those listening to the call.

“The main thing is, let’s see where the planning takes us,” Johnson said. “[Benefits] have to be other things than adjusted production costs. [They have] to be things we’ve consistently agreed upon in both RTOs … and bring them in for discussions with stakeholders.”

The RTOs’ engineering staffs will begin working on transmission solutions that enable generator interconnections, then vet those solutions with the stakeholder community, Johnson said. They will use separate 5- and 10-year models under the same principal and process, deploying economic metrics in the benefits analysis.

Executive Agreement

In aligning their interconnection processes, the RTOs hope to reduce or eliminate costly restudies, creating more certainty for transmission customers. Mitigation projects will be tested in a reliability study and “ideally-suited” projects will be sent to economic studies staff for cost-benefit analysis. Projects that don’t pass the cost-benefit test will be re-evaluated or replaced in the reliability study.

Staff promised stakeholders will be frequently updated on the process and be given a chance to provide input. A draft report will be developed in October.

Both RTOs’ CEOs made it clear they stand behind the study by opening the meeting with mutual statements of support.

“We’re committed to making progress,” SPP CEO Barbara Sugg said. “There’s so much opportunity here to leverage the MISO-SPP seam and benefit customers on both sides. We’re encouraging innovation and flexibility to address some of the problems and challenges we’ve seen in the past. We need to think about things differently and not be constrained by history.”

MISO CEO John Bear momentarily dropped off the call when it came time for him to speak.

“We’re trying to find John,” Johnson said.

“I’m frantically trying to find him,” SPP’s Clint Savoy said.

With order restored and Bear properly unmuted, he thanked Sugg for her leadership and for quickly reaching out to him when she was named SPP’s CEO earlier this year. Bear said he discussed the study with his board of directors during MISO’s Board Week.

“We’re committed to improving the work as it is conducted on the seams,” he said. “We know the work on the seams can be critical as we manage electricity in an affordable and efficient manner.”