By Amanda Durish Cook

MISO last week announced plans to update its interconnection queue procedures to allow multiple projects to interconnect at one point on the system. It also said it will study ways to bring hybrid projects into the process.

At the same time, the RTO is receiving stakeholder pushback on previous proposals to increase the queue’s milestone fees and merge its Interconnection Process Task Force (IPTF) with the Planning Subcommittee.

Speaking at a Sept. 25 IPTF meeting, MISO engineer Tim Kopp said the RTO now thinks multiple projects can share a single interconnection point, but it wants a shared-use agreement struck early in the process and separate metering for each interconnecting facility. He said MISO plans to make Tariff changes that will go before the Planning Advisory Committee.

MISO’s current policy allows only one project per point of interconnection, but market participants have contended they can decrease costs by sharing a single point of interconnection.

The RTO’s plan would require interconnection customers to signal their intention of a multiparty arrangement when they submit applications to join the queue. Before entering the queue, the customers, transmission owner and MISO itself would sign an agreement that would be referenced in the projects’ generator interconnection agreement. Kopp said the agreement is needed to prevent customers from changing use arrangements while advancing through the queue.

“We don’t want to introduce delays with this process because we’re waiting on interconnection customers to negotiate” use agreements, Kopp said.

MISO expects joint requests to increase in the future as smaller projects that only use a small amount of interconnection service proliferate on the grid, he said.

Hybrids in the Queue

MISO staff said minimal revisions to the Business Practices Manuals are required to accommodate hybrid interconnection configurations within the queue study process.

The RTO expects it will most commonly study storage alongside wind and solar generation, as well as wind and combined cycle configurations and wind and solar configurations. Wind and solar have somewhat complementary roles in the MISO footprint; wind tends not to kick up full-force during the sunniest periods of the day.

MISO also said it would consider other configurations at stakeholder request.

“We’re open to review on what stakeholders are going to address,” said Neil Shah, MISO manager of resource interconnection.

Draft rules show MISO would largely use its existing BPM language for other resource types, though it said it will evaluate hybrid fuel dispatch predictions, used in its five-year-out power flow analysis, on a case-by-case basis in ad hoc meetings.

During a Sept. 24 Energy Storage Task Force meeting, Xcel Energy and NextEra Energy proposed that MISO phase in hybrid formats involving storage over time, with hybrid market rules created in the short term. In the longer term, the RTO should devise plans for optimizing charging, which would be handled either by the RTO or market participants, the companies said. Beyond that, MISO would create a flexible participation model where hybrid unit owners can toggle among which ancillary and energy services they provide.

NextEra’s Holly Carias said MISO and stakeholders would have to establish how to best optimize intermittent resource hybrids like wind and solar so they charge and discharge at the most economic times. MISO’s compliance with Order 841 will not involve storage optimization. (See “No Optimization Yet,” MISO Closing in on Storage Participation Plan.)

Energy Storage Task Force Chair John Fernandes said the issue could be ripe for a white paper. MISO’s Steering Committee this month recommended the task force focus on creating white papers for technical storage issues. (See New Direction for MISO’s Energy Storage Task Force.)

MISO to File Queue Changes

Stakeholders are skeptical about MISO’s final milestone modifications aimed at speeding up the slow-moving, 90-GW interconnection queue. While the RTO’s proposal for more stringent site control appears unchallenged, its plan to revise the milestone fee structure is drawing ire. (See MISO to Tweak Queue Rules on Site Control, Project Fees.)

The latest version of the plan calls for the last of three milestone payments in the queue to be reduced to 10% of network upgrades, down from an earlier proposal of 20%. However, MISO plans to raise its first milestone payment from $4,000/MW to $10,000/MW, and some stakeholders say the increase is too steep. They question the RTO’s reasoning for more than doubling the rate.

Tradewind Energy’s Derek Sunderman said MISO was unnecessarily focusing on the milestone fee structure when it should be working to expedite its own study process.

“I would argue that MISO really needs to focus on its study process because this is getting ridiculous. … I don’t think MISO is listening to stakeholders,” Sunderman said.

MISO Resource Utilization Director Vikram Godbole said the current low milestone fees don’t do enough to deter interconnection customers from entering speculative projects that could harm the economic viability of ready projects.

“Our record does not indicate good progress,” Godbole said of the 90-GW queue, arguing for the milestone change.

Other stakeholders said that the active queue will likely slow down after production tax credits for new wind generation expire in 2020.

But Rhonda Peters of Clean Grid Alliance (formerly Wind on the Wires) said the 35 GW of prospective solar generation currently in the queue suggests that solar will become the new resource that keeps the queue busy.

Shah asked for stakeholder feedback on the revised plan by Oct. 9. He said MISO expects to have a final version of the plan in time for review at the Oct. 17 PAC meeting.

In-house Model Development

Shah added that, contrary to some opinions, MISO is focusing on speeding up its study process.

One example: MISO will start building queue study models in-house, according to principal engineer Cody Doll, who noted the RTO currently hires third-party consultants to build the models used in the definitive planning phase of the queue.

“Currently, there seems like there are a ton of delays in our model building,” Doll said. “We’re doing this to gain control of the process.”

Doll said the new process will help MISO maintain better records of the queue process and should cut down on errors made when entering information. It should also shorten MISO’s current 30-day model review period, which can stretch into months depending on whether the RTO uncovers modeling errors.

“We’ll still have the review period, but we’re hoping it’ll be a week or so,” Doll said.

End of IPTF?

Meanwhile, MISO is proposing to end the IPTF and fold its discussions and duties into the Planning Subcommittee. The task force has largely completed its queue revisions, but some stakeholders say more work remains and pointed out that stakeholders attending the IPTF have voted to transform it into a working group. In MISO’s stakeholder structure, working groups are more permanent than task forces, which have an expected sunset date.

Several stakeholders said MISO didn’t provide enough warning to stakeholders before bringing the idea forward at the Sept. 26 PAC meeting, with some suggesting the RTO was trying to subvert the stakeholder process by not posting the discussion as an agenda item. WEC Energy Group’s Chris Plante said he did not have time to introduce the idea to the Transmission-Dependent Utilities sector ahead of the meeting and said he was “disappointed in MISO’s process.”

MISO Executive Director of Resource Planning Patrick Brown said moving the IPTF into the permanent Planning Subcommittee will cut down on identical presentations at the two groups and will result in more comprehensive discussion because interconnection topics will take place alongside transmission planning discussions. It will “enable a more holistic approach to planning,” Brown said.

“We’ll have a broad range of stakeholders involved in the conversation,” he added.

MISO staff promised more discussion in October on how to merge the IPTF’s charter into that of the PSC.