MISO said last week that it will approach SPP about improving the processes underpinning affected system studies in response to stakeholders’ persistent calls for change.

Stakeholders participating in an Interconnection Process Working Group teleconference on Jan. 12 again questioned why SPP affected system studies include such strict deliverability requirements for MISO generation seeking to interconnect within MISO’s footprint. (See MISO West Risks Becoming ‘Dead Zone,’ Stakeholders Warn.)

The MISO and SPP affected system studies processes often produce prohibitively expensive transmission upgrades for prospective generation projects near the seams and interfere with developers’ ability to judge the commercial viability of proposed generation.

“I think we’ve all seen the FERC proceedings and the issues, but these problems aren’t going away. And I don’t say this is MISO’s problem. We’re all in this together,” EDF Renewables’ Arash Ghodsian said.

Coordination between the affected system studies needs another look, Apex Clean Energy’s Richard Seide said.

“We’re definitely here to see how we can improve. We’re all ears,” MISO Principal Resource Interconnection Planning Engineer Sumit Mundade said.

“Why does SPP study a MISO resource as if it’s a SPP resource at all?” Michigan Public Service Commission staff member Bonnie Janssen asked.

Mundade said the idea is to figure out whether generators in the MISO footprint could harm SPP system performance.

Apex Clean Energy’s Deepesh Rana asked if MISO could give interconnection customers earlier notification on what projects will face additional upgrade costs in light of SPP’s study findings.

“Is there something that could be done to give more frequent communication on where the analysis stands, in a non-binding way?”

Mundade said SPP recently changed its process to use a screening analysis to identify the specific projects it will study “instead of the old process of studying the whole cluster.”

He said MISO can speak with SPP about providing earlier notice on the generation projects selected for affected system studies, but it’s unlikely to able to provide earlier cost estimates for the network upgrades SPP identified.

The two RTOs could discuss the possibility of earlier notification and other affected system study process improvements during their monthly nonpublic interregional staff meetings.

Stakeholders also asked MISO to discuss study improvements in the context of its new interregional transmission study, which aims to alleviate the RTOs’ respective queue bottlenecks. (See MISO, SPP to Conduct Targeted Transmission Study.)

“If MISO doesn’t discuss in joint meetings how this can be addressed in the joint study, then I think that’s an opportunity missed,” Customized Energy Solutions’ Ginger Hodge said.

Shortened Queue Still MISO’s Goal

Meanwhile, MISO plans to file a proposal to reduce the timeline for a key portion of its interconnection queue — from the definitive planning phase to the signing of an interconnection agreement — to a single year. (See “Queue Timeline Cutbacks Still in the Works,” MISO Winds down MTEP 20 Planning, Focuses on 2021.)

“The goal is to cut almost 140 calendar days from the current process,” interconnection study engineer Miles Larson said.

Larson said the truncated timeline is set to begin with the 2022 cycle of prospective generation. MISO will achieve the reductions by cutting the days allotted for interconnection agreement negotiations and study, performing some study aspects simultaneously.

“Before, the process was very sequential. A lot of these tasks can now be done in parallel,” he said at a meeting in November of the Interconnection Process Working Group. He added that study assumptions and modeling will remain unchanged.

But by the end of last year stakeholders were skeptical MISO could achieve those efficiency gains without speedier processing of affected system studies with neighboring RTOs.

“The focus is how do we build these models faster? How do we run these studies more efficiently? How can we be more transparent?” Larson said during the interconnection meeting in January. “Without challenging our timeline, we’re not going to get more efficient processes or an alignment” between studying network upgrades and annual transmission planning. (See MISO Begins Bid to Merge Tx, Queue Planning.)

At the Planning Advisory Committee meeting Jan. 13, MISO Senior Manager of Economic Planning Neil Shah said it would be nearly impossible to evaluate generator interconnection upgrades for wider economic benefits “within the current definitive planning process framework and timeline.”

Larson said stakeholder feedback from the 2022 cycle of projects will be used to make further revisions to the timeline if necessary.

But some said affected system studies remain the real stumbling block to achieving a swifter interconnection process.

“I think affected studies are always going to hold this process back,” Ghodsian said. “I would encourage you to work with your neighbors. … I think you can share your ideas with SPP and PJM as they’re in the early stages of addressing their queue backlogs.”

MISO counsel Mike Blackwell agreed that affected system studies remain a “big concern.”

The RTO’s interconnection queue currently contains 628 projects totaling 93 GW, enough to cover about three quarters of total load on a peak summer day.