By Tom Kleckner

SPP said last week that its Board of Directors has created a Holistic Integrated Tariff Team (HITT) comprising directors, regulators, staff and stakeholders to take an all-encompassing look at the different challenges facing its footprint and develop a set of high-level recommendations in response.

The team is hoping to replicate the success of a “synergistic” planning project team created nine years ago. That team produced a report that led to SPP’s integrated transmission planning process and the “highway/byway” cost allocation methodology for new transmission upgrades.

The 16-member HITT includes Directors Larry Altenbaumer and Graham Edwards and state commissioners Shari Feist Albrecht (Kansas Corporation Commission) and Dennis Grennan (Nebraska Power Review Board).

The Nebraska Public Power District’s Tom Kent will serve as chair of the team and Dogwood Energy’s Rob Janssen as vice chair. SPP Legal Counsel Paul Suskie will serve as the team’s staff secretary.

Kansas City Power & Light’s Denise Buffington said she is looking forward to being one of four investor-owned utility representatives on the team. Buffington chaired a task force that was unable to reach consensus on improvements to SPP’s methodology for assigning financial credits and obligations for sponsored transmission upgrades under Attachment Z2 of its Tariff.

“Based on my experience with the Z2 task force, I anticipate there will be a lot to learn and it will be a multiyear process,” Buffington said.

The 16-person HITT will assess:

• SPP’s transmission planning and study processes, including generation interconnections, the interconnection queue, energy resource and network resource interconnection service, aggregate studies, capacity requirements, and related FERC planning requirements.
• Transmission cost allocation issues, including regional and zonal funding, directly assigned costs, Attachment Z2 credits, cost allocation impacts on transmission pricing zones with large wind resources, and state-by-state supply resource mix requirements and goals.
• Effects on the Integrated Marketplace from a changing resource mix, access to lower cost generation and potential changes in production tax credits.
• Disconnects or potential synergies between transmission planning and real-time reliability and economic operations.
• Any other areas and issues seen as appropriate and reasonably related to the scope of work.

The HITT will report to the board’s Members Committee and provide status reports to the Regional State Committee, Markets and Operations Policy Committee and Strategic Planning Committee. SPP expects the team to complete its work with a written report by April 2019. It can request additional time, if needed.

SPP stakeholders will be able to listen to the meetings and discussion through teleconference.

The group’s creation was approved during a board executive session March 13. During that same meeting, the board approved 18 policy statements that will guide Mountain West’s pending membership into SPP. (See SPP Begins Work of Integrating Mountain West.)

Joint Petition on SPP RE’s Dissolution Filed with FERC

NERC, the Midwest Reliability Organization and SERC Reliability Corp. have submitted to FERC a joint petition in connection with the SPP Regional Entity’s dissolution.

The filing follows the NERC Board of Trustees’ February vote to dissolve the SPP RE by terminating the RTO’s regional delegation agreement, ending a reliability oversight role that concerned both the reliability organization and FERC. (See NERC Board Approves Dissolving SPP Regional Entity.)

The petition requests FERC approval of:

• The termination of the amended and restated delegation agreement (RDA) between NERC and SPP.
• The proposed transfers of SPP RE registered entities to MRO and SERC by July 1, 2018.
• The amendments to RDAs between NERC and MRO and between NERC and SERC to reflect the changed geographic footprint resulting from the transfer.

NERC requested that the commission expedite consideration of the petition and shorten the comment period to no more than 14 days “to allow a timely transition of registered entities from SPP RE to MRO and SERC with minimal disruption.”