SPP and MISO stakeholders are reviewing an initial draft of the RTOs’ 2019 Coordinated System Plan (CSP), which will jointly evaluate identified seams issues and determine the need for any interregional transmission projects.

SPP staff intend to “leverage” coordinated transmission needs identified in the RTOs’ transmission planning processes to study whether it makes the most financial sense to develop interregional projects that efficiently address seams needs. The RTOs’ have ditched the joint planning model previously used in the first two CSPs, neither of which resulted in an interregional project. (See MISO, SPP Seek Coordinated Plan in 2019.)

Interregional Coordinator Adam Bell told the Seams Steering Committee on Wednesday that the RTOs’ staff will incorporate the feedback into a final scope document, which will be distributed to the Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee.

Stakeholders have until May 17 to send their comments to Bell at abell@spp.org or MISO’s Ben Stearney at bstearney@misoenergy.org.

The RTOs’ staff have committed to completing the study by Dec. 31.

MISO’s M2M Tab with SPP Reaches $60M

SPP earned another $2.3 million in market-to-market (M2M) payments from MISO in March, pushing the latter’s deficit to $60.8 million, staff told the committee.

It was the 24th month in the last 30 in which M2M distributions have flowed in SPP’s direction. The RTOs began the M2M process in March 2015.

Permanent flowgates along the RTOs’ seam were binding for 141 hours and temporary flowgates were binding for 552 hours, resulting in $958,000 and $1.3 million in payments, respectively.

— Tom Kleckner