STOWE, Vt. — Mary Bimonte of Eversource Energy on July 16 presented a joint meeting of the New England Power Pool Reliability and Transmission committees with an overview of the regional network service (RNS) rates that became effective June 1.

Bimonte, a member of the Participating Transmission Owners Administrative Committee, showed the RNS rate increased $1.51/kW-year from last year to $111.94/kW-year, with the region’s aggregate annual transmission revenue requirement (ATRR) rising $41.3 million to nearly $2.19 billion.

Eversource subsidiaries Public Service Company of New Hampshire, NSTAR West and NSTAR East accounted for much of the ATRR increase, along with Vermont Transco and Maine Electric Power.

During a presentation of the five-year RNS rate forecast, Bimonte noted this year’s increase was 67 cents/kW-year short of projections made last year for 2019.

Modifying Interconnection Procedures

ISO-NE Director of Transmission Strategy and Services Al McBride led a discussion of proposed modifications to interconnection procedures — specifically, Planning Procedure No. 10 sections 7.7 and 7.8 — to clarify adjustments to interconnection capability following partial market exits.

According to the RTO’s market procedures, “permanent and retirement delist bids can be submitted for all or just a portion of a resource’s capacity. A partial delist bid allows a resource to remove the portion of its megawatts it cannot deliver from all ISO-NE markets or only the capacity market, depending on the type of delist bid submitted.”

“When a partial retirement delist bid clears in the Forward Capacity Auction, the resource remains active and its interconnection rights are reduced to the appropriate megawatt level,” according to the RTO. “When a partial permanent delist bid clears in the FCA, the qualified capacity value for the resource is reduced.”

In February, the NEPOOL Participants Committee approved the general changes, which include methodologies to update the levels of interconnection service available for generators (and external elective transmission upgrades) after the clearing of a retirement delist bid, permanent delist bid or substitution auction demand bid in the Forward Capacity Market.

The RC and TC will alternately discuss the specific proposed revisions ahead of a planned vote by the PC in November, with a tentative effective date of January 2020.

During the previous discussions, stakeholders identified circumstances where the winter capability of their generating facilities after a partial market exit may not be correctly calculated by the formulas currently contained in PP10, McBride said.

The RTO will propose a new section of the Tariff to capture the rules associated with the establishment and relinquishment of interconnection service amounts and plans to present the proposed revisions at the Aug. 21 TC meeting.

Operating Procedure Revisions

The RC voted to recommend that the PC support revisions to a handful of ISO-NE operating procedures slated to become effective Aug. 2, including:

• Altering OP-24 to describe the confidential Appendix C as a list of transmission facilities for which transmission owners are required to report protection settings, characteristics, failures or degradation. RTO staffer Jerry Elliott presented proposed revisions reflecting that Appendix C previously included a diagram, but now includes a list. The proposed changes to OP-24 are conforming changes.
• Revising OP–12 (Voltage and Reactive Control) and OP-12D (Voltage Schedule Annual Transmittal Form) to clarify local control center actions for providing voltage schedules to generators.
• Revising OP-5 (Resource Maintenance and Outage Scheduling) to indicate that outage requests for import capacity resources are for notification purposes only. The motion passed with six opposed (two from the Generation Sector, two from the Supplier Sector and two from the Alternative Resource Sector) and three abstentions (one Generation Sector, one Supplier Sector and one Alternative Resource Sector).

Future Vote on OP-14E Revision

Elliott presented proposed revisions to OP-14E to incorporate energy storage as a type of asset-related demand that can be selected on ISO-NE’s form NX-12E.

The RC is scheduled to vote on the revisions at its Aug. 20 meeting, and the RTO is seeking a vote by the PC at its Sept. 13 meeting.

The changes include correcting terms defined in section I.2.2 of the Tariff or ISO-NE manuals, in addition to replacing the term “nominated consumption level” with the defined term “nominated consumption limit.”

The RTO also notified the RC of revisions to OP-10 Appendix A to update the contact information for the U.S. Department of Energy in cases of reporting major system disturbance, outage or incident. The revisions took effect immediately upon the notification.

Reactive Capability Auditing Tariff Changes

The RC voted to recommend PC support for proposed revisions to section I.2.2 of the Tariff to incorporate definitions for interconnection reliability operating limit (IROL) and system operating limit (SOL).

ISO-NE lead operations analyst Kory Haag said the revisions incorporate four new defined terms in the Tariff: reactive capability audit, reactive resource, IROL and SOL.

The meeting focused on IROL and SOL, which will now be defined as the meaning specified in the glossary of terms used in NERC reliability standards.

NERC defines IROL as “a system operating limit that, if violated, could lead to instability, uncontrolled separation or cascading outages that adversely impact the reliability of the bulk electric system.”

It defines SOL as “the value … that satisfies the most limiting of the prescribed operating criteria for a specified system configuration to ensure operation within acceptable reliability criteria.”

The RC requested an Oct. 1 effective date for the definitions, following a vote by the PC in August.

Eversource Substation Upgrades

The RC voted to recommend that ISO-NE determine that three proposed substation upgrades by Eversource would not adversely affect the stability, reliability or operating characteristics of nearby transmission facilities.

Upgrades to the Andrew Square and Dewar Street substations in South Boston would entail the installation of two independent current differential high-speed protection groups on the K Street-to-Andrew Square 115-kV cables and the Dewar 115-kV cables to provide the selectivity to differentiate between a line fault and a transformer fault. The work will provide protection system fault clearing selectivity and design in compliance with Northeast Power Coordinating Council protection system design criteria (NPCC Directory 4 BPS). The proposed in-service date for both projects is in November 2019.

An upgrade to the Portsmouth substation in New Hampshire would entail the replacement of an existing 115/34-kV, 44.8-MVA transformer with a 62.5-MVA rated unit, the addition of a second 115/34-kV, 62.5-MVA transformer, installation of one new 115-kV bus tie circuit breaker, and installation of two new 115-kV circuit breaker disconnect switches. Eversource will also install one new 11-kV circuit switcher for high-side transformer protection and add two 7.2-MVAR capacitor banks, one on each 34-kV bus. The upgrade also will add a 34.5-kV bus tie circuit breaker, which will normally be open, with an automatic close function upon loss of a transformer. The proposed in-service date is June 1, 2020.

4 20-MW Solar Projects by FPS Approved

The RC voted to recommend that ISO-NE determine that implementation of four separate 20-MW solar projects proposed by Freepoint Commodities (FPS) would not adversely affect the grid.

None of the projects include energy storage, and each comprises 10 2-MW arrays.

SGC Engineering’s Jeff Fenn presented the separate project overviews, showing the solar farm in Plainfield, Conn., interconnecting to the 23-kV bus at the Fry Brook substation and with a proposed in-service date of December 2022.

The firm’s project in Fair Haven, Vt., will interconnect to the 46-kV line between the Green Mountain Power Fair Haven and Carver Falls substations, while the project in Shaftsbury, Vt., will interconnect to the 46-kV line between the GMP South Shaftsbury tap and East Arlington substation, both with a proposed in-service date of July 1, 2022. The project in Claremont, N.H., has the same in-service date.

Enhancing Competitive Tx RFP

ISO-NE Transmission Planning Director Brent Oberlin led a discussion of competitive transmission solicitation enhancements that included proposed clarifications to Attachment K of section II of the Tariff, the draft selected qualified transmission project sponsor (SQTPS) agreement, and to sections I.2.2 and I.3.9 of the Tariff associated with preparing for competitive transmission solicitations under FERC Order 1000.

Based on the results of the 2028 Boston Needs Assessment, which were presented to the ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee in April, the RTO plans to issue its first request for proposals for a competitively developed transmission solution in December 2019. (See ISO-NE Planning Advisory Committee Briefs: April 25, 2019.)

Tx Cost Allocation Revisions

The RC voted to recommend that ISO-NE approve pool-supported costs for two projects by Avangrid’s United Illuminating subsidiary in Connecticut, including $11.24 million for work associated with the East Shore 345-kV circuit switcher replacement and $8.17 million to replace line optical ground wire and related fiber optic equipment on the 115-kV 1130 Line between the Pequonnock and Sasco Creek substations.

UIL determined that none of the costs associated with either upgrade can be considered localized.

Capacity Cost Compensation

The RC voted to recommend that ISO-NE designate PSEG Power’s Bridgeport Harbor gas-fired plant and the Wheelabrator North Andover waste-to-energy plant as dynamic reactive resources meeting the RTO’s capacity cost compensation program eligibility requirements.

The committee recommended the facilities be eligible for compensation associated with a qualified reactive resource designation effective Aug. 1.

RC Consent Agenda

The RC approved a consent agenda that included seven proposed plan application (PPA) notifications for Massachusetts solar generation totaling nearly 27.5 MW.

The list includes five projects being interconnected through Eversource:

• Borrego Solar’s 3.75-MW project in Plymouth, interconnecting to the Valley substation, with a proposed in-service date of Dec. 31.
• Borrego’s 4.999-MW project in Freetown, interconnecting to the Bell Rock substation, with a proposed in-service date of May 1, 2020.
• CVE North America’s 2.5-MW/1.262-MW Wing Lane solar and battery project in Acushnet, interconnecting to the Wing Lane substation with a proposed in-service date of Oct. 31.
• SunRaise Development’s 2.5-MW Cranberry Highway project in Wareham, interconnecting to the Tremont substation with a proposed in-service date of Dec. 1.
• Syncarpha’s 4.99-MW Chester Road solar and battery project in Blandford, interconnecting to the Blandford substation with a proposed in-service date of Nov. 18.

Two projects will interconnect through New England Power:

• Ameresco’s 2.5-MW Otter River Road project in Gardner, interconnecting to the Crystal Lake Substation with a proposed in-service date of Sept. 1, 2020.
• NSTAR Electric’s 4.99-MW Denslow Road project in East Longmeadow, interconnecting to the East Longmeadow substation with a proposed in-service date of Nov. 15, 2020.

The consent agenda also included one PPA non-solar notification, the 1.5-MW Madison Business Park battery energy storage facility in Madison, Maine, which New England Battery Storage will interconnect to the Jones Street substation with a proposed in-service date of Jan. 1, 2020.

The agenda also included three Level I (for information only) transmission PPA notifications:

• New England Power is updating the summer normal and revised winter line ratings to reflect current cable design on a new 345-kV underground line from the Wakefield Junction substation to the company’s border with Eversource at the Wakefield/Stoneham, Mass., town line; two new circuit breakers at the Wakefield Junction substation; and a new 345-kV variable shunt reactor. The proposed in-service date is in May 2021.
• Eversource is updating the summer normal and revised winter line ratings to reflect current cable design on the installation of a new 8-mile, 345-kV underground cable circuit from the Woburn substation in Massachusetts to National Grid’s Wakefield Junction substation, in Wakefield, including 160-MVAR variable shunt reactors at each terminal. The work will expand the 345-kV switchyard at Woburn to be a breaker-and-a-half substation with four bays. The proposed in-service date is in May 2021.
• Eversource is also rebuilding the existing 69-kV 667 Line from the Salisbury substation in Salisbury, Conn., to the Falls Village substation because of asset conditions. The proposed in-service date is Dec. 31.

— Michael Kuser