By Amanda Durish Cook
MISO last week said it will hold off on a decision to expedite its review of a proposal to interconnect Foxconn’s massive electronics plant planned for southeastern Wisconsin until it gets more feedback from stakeholders.
The RTO’s studies of American Transmission Co.’s plan to interconnect the Foxconn plant concluded the project is suitable for recommendation to the Board of Directors under the normal approval timeline for the 2018 Transmission Expansion Plan. But MISO is stopping short of granting expedited status until it hears stakeholder opinions at a Feb. 14 Planning Advisory Committee meeting.
ATC submitted the request for accelerated approval, contending that the proposed $140 million Mount Pleasant Tech Interconnection Project to hook up the $10 billion electronic manufacturing plant with We Energies’ network cannot wait until the usual approvals at the end of the year as part of MTEP 18. ATC has proposed constructing a 14-mile 345-kV transmission line, a new 345/138-kV substation and new underground 138-kV lines to connect the substation to a smaller Foxconn-owned substation near the plant. The transmission developer said it received We Energies’ request to construct the infrastructure in mid-October and notified MISO of the need for expedited approval in late November.
MISO’s studies have found the project will have no adverse impact on system reliability, with the project meeting NERC and ATC local planning reliability criteria.
Minimal Economic Benefits
But MISO also determined that potential systemwide economic gains from the Foxconn project fall far short of the threshold for qualifying as a market efficiency project eligible for competitive bidding or broader cost allocation.
During a Jan. 25 conference call, MISO economic analyst Nicholas Przybilla said the RTO found the benefit-cost ratio of the project would likely be 0.009:1, well below the 1.25:1 requirement for market efficiency projects. He said the economic assessment was provided for informational purposes only, as the lead time and projected December 2019 in-service date are too short for consideration anyway.
Michigan Public Service Commission staffer Bonnie Janssen asked why the economic benefits were so low.
“There is a decent amount of interconnect in the area already,” Przybilla said.
Earlier this month, three Milwaukee aldermen questioned We Energies and ATC’s plan to pass the costs of the interconnection to ratepayers, given that the project stands to benefit just one large industrial customer. (See Milwaukee Signals Fight Against Foxconn Interconnection Plan.)
In response to a question from Kavita Maini, an economist for Midwest Industrial Customers, MISO said its study relied solely on ATC’s 230-MW load projection for the plant, rather than considering any other forecasts. ATC staff at the meeting said they determined that figure was credible after examining similar manufacturing plants in Asia.
Joseph Dunn, MISO West Region expansion planning engineer, said ATC provided an $130 million alternative proposal that would loop existing 345-kV lines into the new substation, but the RTO found the project would result in inferior reliability and more right-of-way approvals when compared to the original project.
If approved, ATC’s interconnection project will eliminate the need for the $12 million reconstruction of a 345-kV bus in Racine, Wis., that was originally approved in the MTEP 16 cycle. That smaller project also has a December 2019 in-service date, but MISO staff said it will be withdrawn should ATC’s project win approval.
