MISO will draw on its new planning futures to build the first set of models that could result in its long-term transmission plan’s first projects.

The RTO’s senior manager of system planning coordination, Jarred Miland, said staff are building reliability and economic models similar to those used in MISO’s annual Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP). He said the long-term assessment’s first models will be ready for member review during 2021’s first quarter.

The models will be based on three MTEP futures designed for use in the 2021 planning cycle and beyond.

Late last year, MISO launched its first long-term planning effort in a decade to connect fast-growing renewable sources with load centers. (See MISO Prepares Members for Pricey Transmission Expansion.)

Miland said during Thursday’s Planning Advisory Committee that staff will use the more conservative Future I to build seven base reliability models each for 2030 and 2040. The future assumes 85% of utilities’ carbon-cutting plans are met and carbon is reduced 40% from 2005 levels by 2040. MISO currently operates at a 22% carbon reduction from 2005 levels.

“If you think about it, there are over 100 models we could build and we could spend months and months building models and never get to the analysis,” he said. “That’s not to say we won’t build more models. In fact, I expect we will build more models. But we needed something to begin analysis with. … These 14 models certainly won’t be the end-all.”

Miland said Future I modeling simply kicks off work that will take place in 2021. He emphasized that the long-term planning will take place over several transmission cycles and said that MISO will also likely build seven models apiece for the more aggressive Futures II and III.

“This a long-term plan to see how we’re going to stay ahead of the game for the next 40 years,” Miland said. “We do anticipate that at end of this year, we may have some projects with ripe business cases that we can bring forward for board approval.”

While MISO focuses on model builds, the Organization of MISO States is concentrating on how the long-range projects’ cost might be shared in the footprint.

The OMS convened a special cost-allocation committee late last year to draw up principles on how MISO should approach long-term projects’ cost sharing.

Up until approval, OMS members were wrestling over whether states with more aggressive clean-energy policies should bear a greater share of the costs for transmission that enables renewable energy.

Some commission staff pointed out that several states with renewable portfolio standards have already exceeded their targets. Others said it remains to be seen whether MISO will consider public policy requirements as a benefit metric. The staffers also debated whether some transmission costs should be allocated on a postage stamp basis and whether some long-term transmission projects should be packaged into portfolios.

MISO has said projects will likely face approval independently in annual timelines, rather than being approved en masse in a portfolio.

Speaking at an OMS cost-allocation principles meeting Jan. 11, Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Matt Schuerger said bundling transmission projects that have “synergies” can sometimes make sense. He said it’s not as if planners would lump together transmission projects “from opposite ends of the footprint.”

But New Orleans City Council attorney David Shaffer said each transmission project should be able to stand on its own under scrutiny.