SPP stakeholders last week narrowly rejected a proposal that would have waived producing an economic study in 2023, a move that would help relieve staff burdened by conducting three transmission studies at the same time.

Markets and Operations Policy Committee members voted down a motion to skip the economic and policy requirements in the 2023 Integrated Transmission Plan over concerns that the process, designed to study potential synergies between reliability and economic solutions, might overlook an economic project that could defer or replace a reliability project.

The measure gained 65% approval, two percentage points short of passage. Transmission owners approved staff’s recommendation by a 14-3 margin, but transmission users rejected it 22-20, with five abstentions.

Staff said the waiver is necessary to help take the 2021 ITP plan out of red status. SPP planning personnel are stretched thin by the number of studies and initiatives they are involved in and by the “waterfall” approach to the ITP process. Staff are currently involved in the joint transmission interconnection queue study with MISO, FERC Order 2222 and initiatives in energy storage resources and transmission’s value.

“We’ve never been at a more important phase in our evolution as an industry today,” ITC Holdings’ Alan Myers said. “[The economic] analysis is very important for staying up with that. We look at planning as a core function of SPP. It’s a food-and-shelter type of item. We think the economic and policy portion of that fits right down the fairway.”

SPP transitioned the 2021 ITP to yellow in July 2020 as it consistently took a back seat to completing the 2020 ITP. Staffing has been an issue as well, with 35% turnover in the planning team during the last few years and the unplanned work-from-home schedule as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 plan, the first of three other overlapping studies in the same cycle, is currently 77 business days behind schedule.

“We really have to think through the unintended consequences of these robust studies,” Casey Cathey, director of system planning, said. “I’m a fan, but it impacts things downstream. With several plans under our belt, we have a lot more experience in what works and what doesn’t.”

COO Lanny Nickell said staff will take the same proposal to the Board of Directors when it meets on July 27. That will allow time to consider another option to keep the 2023 economic study intact, he said.

“We may need to commit to spend some consultant money to prevent us from compromising or risking the 2021 ITP this year,” Nickell said. “We want to ensure the board understands there could be some costs” associated with delaying the decision until the next MOPC meeting in July.

Asked whether that would solve the problem later or just require SPP to spend more money up front, Nickell said the 2021 ITP cannot be placed at risk.

“There’s no guarantee [that] whatever we come up with in fact meets our needs,” he said. “This is challenging, because you have to pick from a portfolio of activities, some of which have already occurred. It’s a matter of putting together what we think is the right package of priorities that we can accomplish.”

Cathey said the Strategic and Creative Re-engineering of Integrated Planning Team’s (SCRIPT) work on long-term planning issues and developing a comprehensive initiative roadmap, which includes planning, will help reduce risk in the future.

For the time being, staff is also developing a three-year resource stack to view and address future constraints, building backup support, and prioritizing high-value, effective and efficient improvements to the ITP process.

“Based on the 2021 ITP, we’re moving forward with 2022 activities,” Cathey said. “Given everything else we have committed to in the next 24 months … something will have to slide.”

SPP did get a boost when the MOPC unanimously approved two other motions related to the ITP process: waiving requirements to build and assess a market economic model developed during the 2021 reliability needs assessment, and sliding the 2021 ITP’s end date from October to December.

Winter Storm Review

SPP’s comprehensive review of the February winter storm’s aftermath continues, with a final report due in July.

“We do think we did a lot of things well,” Nickell said, acknowledging the RTO’s first-ever load sheds. “It’s important to recognize the things that did not work out well. We have to ensure that gets documented as well.”

Nickell, who chairs the steering committee managing five parallel paths — operational, financial, communications, regulatory and the Market Monitoring Unit — said the team has two goals: ensure an understanding of what happened during the event and assess SPP’s performance in a transparent process.

“We want to make sure the recommendations improve future performance,” he said.

Several stakeholder groups have been meeting weekly, often in executive session. Some stakeholders pushed back, noting the work behind closed doors does not meet the transparency goal.

Evergy’s Denise Buffington, who is leading the operational review along with Omaha Public Power District’s Joe Lang, said the team is operating on a tight timeframe but plans to open the door to others soon.

“I ask for a little bit of patience as we work through the process,” Buffington said, suggesting stakeholders reach out to her, Lang or Nickell with any topics they want addressed.

CFO Tom Dunn said SPP settled $2 billion worth of market transactions during the first few days of the sub-freezing weather, which enveloped much of the Midwest. That is a hundred times the RTO’s normal weekly settlements.

“We’re looking at the efficiency of our process … and the effectiveness of our controls,” Dunn said. “The exposure to the market participants was quite substantial.”

“There was definitely some interesting pricing during the event, both with levels we’ve never seen before and the volatility around that,” MMU Executive Director Keith Collins said.

The market costs were driven by “astronomical” natural gas prices that shot up over $1,000/MMBtu towards the end of the week,” Collins said. The Monitor has been working to verify energy offers above SPP’s $1,000/MWh safety-net offer cap, which could result in as much as $1 billion in make-whole payments. (See SPP MMU Quarterly Report Focuses on Winter Storms.)

SPP staff is also responding to informational requests by FERC, NERC and the Midwest Reliability Organization.

GI Backlog a Pressing Issue

SCRIPT members and the sub-teams working to re-engineer SPP’s transmission planning processes shared their progress thus far on two of the more vexing issues: reducing the generator interconnection queue’s backlog and consolidating planning assessments.

David Kelley, SPP’s director of seams and tariff services, said staff is developing an interim solution for the GI backlog while the SCRIPT works on long-term planning recommendations.

SPP’s current backlog includes 451 interconnection requests totaling 79.9 GW. As an example of the backlog’s age, staff is about to begin the first phase for the 2017-001 definitive interconnection system impact study (DISIS) cluster. The largest study cluster — 2017-002, at 112 requests for nearly 23 GW of capacity — is next, with four additional clusters lined up to follow.

“We’re pretty anxious to get that one started,” Kelley said of the 2017-002 cluster.

One of the keys to the mitigation plan is eliminating restudies following a project’s withdrawal from the cluster.

“We can’t continue to have [restudies] and eliminate the backlog,” Kelley said. “Late-stage withdrawals always lead to a restudy. We have to incentivize the decision-making earlier in the study process.”

Staff and stakeholders have already collaborated on a three-stage study process for generator interconnections. (See FERC OKs New SPP Interconnection Process.) However, as Kelley pointed out, that wasn’t designed “to get us out of the multiyear backlog we’re in.”

The mitigation plan adds new readiness requirements and measures, firmer financial commitments, streamlined studies and a “backstop” process that would “clear a path” for future improvements. Backstop interconnection studies would address “very limited circumstances” should DISIS efficiencies and improvements be insufficient to mitigate expected resource adequacy deficiencies, Kelley said.

The three-stage study timeline takes about 485 days; one DISIS’ completion leads into the beginning of the next study cluster.

Kelley said he is proposing something “a little novel, at least for us:” after completing the first study phase of one cluster, staff would begin the second phase while also starting the first phase of the next study cluster. Stakeholder feedback to that proposal has been positive, but they have pushed back against combining the clusters.

Staff has also reduced the number of models required for a cluster study, from more than 400 to about 80. Kelly said staff believes the changes will help complete each study in one year or less.

“We believe we can eliminate the backlog by 2024,” he said.

Separately, the SCRIPT consolidation sub-team, charged with melding together the ITP, generator interconnection, and transmission service planning and study processes, is proposing to remove or modify outdated or unneeded processes, reduce the number of model sets and develop a consolidated planning assessment.

Kelsey Allen, lead engineer in transmission planning, called the latter proposal “the big one.”

“We need to develop a transmission plan that suits the needs of all in the most cost-effective way and preserves reliability,” he said. “Ultimately, In the long term, we can gain efficiency from a staffing perspective just by combining these assessments with the staff we have. We’re really going to have to look at where our process efficiencies are, and what we can automate.”

The 20-year assessment and proposed interregional projects’ evaluation will not be touched.

Allen said the sub-team will work with SCRIPT over the next few months to develop a timeline and better understand the costs. He suggested that the consolidated planning assessment might not start until the GI backlog has been addressed.

The SCRIPT plans to present a final report to the board in October.

Panels Highlight Diversity, Equity Goals

Stakeholders participated in two staff-moderated panel discussions focused on differing perspectives, given MOPC’s 105 members representing about a dozen different sectors. The panels were part of the committee’s diversity, equity and inclusion goals.

“We’re trying to learn more about each other,” Buffington said.

SPP Board Chair Larry Altenbaumer complimented members on the panel discussion.

“We have new types of members and new types of interest,” he said. “There are some huge win-win opportunities out there for us.”

Unanimous OK for Consent Agenda

MOPC’s consent agenda passed with 97% approval after members pulled a revision request based on NextEra Energy Resources’ concern that the measure (RTWG RR430) makes it difficult to gather required information from turbine manufacturers.

“Our goal is to ensure [that] what is ultimately installed is accurate and SPP knows what is on the system,” said NextEra’s Jack Clark, who offered language to allay his company’s concern.

The Regional Tariff Working Group will consider NextEra’s suggested language and bring the measure back to the July MOPC meeting.

MOPC endorsed nine revision requests on the consent agenda:

• ESWG RR448: removes the renewable portfolio standards table from the ITP Manual, eliminating the need for future waivers over the table’s mismatches between the ITP Manual and ITP scope study.
• MWG RR441: performs minor clean-up of items discovered during the development of RR361 (Ramp Capability Products) and deletes language specific to deselect flags for ramp products, as they will not exist for ramp products.
• MWG RR442: aligns updated language with the intent approved in RR288 (DVER Dispatch Instruction Rules Clean-up), which modified the definition of “desired energy” and updates settlements definitions for three determinants.
• MWG RR444: adds variable definitions inadvertently missed in RR323 (Order 841 Compliance ESR) and RR425 (Order 841 ESR Settlements Correction) and moves some variable calculations to sections where the variable was first introduced.
• MWG RR445: adds Martin Luther King Jr. Day as an official SPP holiday, replacing Presidents’ Day.
• ORWG RR443: recommends approval of Business Practice 7800 (Resource Retirement Study) and addresses language requiring additional analysis for retiring resources that provided energy for more than four months over the previous 24-month period.
• RTWG RR437: clarifies the start date as the receipt of a customer’s executed study agreement, deposit and technical information when SPP conducts impact studies for new surplus interconnection service requests.
• RTWG RR447: modifies the megawatt-mile process to reduce the number of needed or requested model reruns.
• TWG RR435: modifies the generator interconnection study process for upgrades required to mitigate every outage-based constraint.

The consent agenda also included:

• the Economic Studies Working Group’s recommendation to modify the 2022 ITP’s scope giving staff flexibility to choose between MTEP model series for external load forecasts and to use a 50/50 solar-to-wind mix for policy additions;
• a 26.3% cost reduction for a 115-kV Southwestern Public Service project, resulting in a $16.1 million baseline estimate; and
• recommended endorsements of sponsored upgrade studies for East River Electric Power Cooperative projects involving a 3.6-MVAR capacitor bank and a tap replacement with a 115-kV substation and moving two 69-kV lines.