By Amanda Durish Cook

Renewable proponents are calling on MISO to revamp a transmission planning process that they say inhibits the development of renewable generation in the RTO’s western region.

“We have been hearing from our developer members that MISO West is ‘closed for business’ due to the high cost of transmission upgrades needed, and the cliff interconnection customers experienced recently has been foreshadowed in the last two interconnection planning study cycles,” Natalie McIntire, Clean Grid Alliance (CGA) policy consultant, said in an interview with RTO Insider.

The alliance this month issued a “clarion call” for MISO to build more transmission capacity in the area consisting of the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa, pointing to the demise of 3,500 MW of proposed wind and solar projects that entered the RTO’s interconnection queue in February 2017.

Development of nearly all of those 27 projects — some of which had power purchase agreements in place — was hindered by transmission upgrades necessary to accommodate interconnection at the cost of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars per project. As of this month, only a 175-MW wind farm and a 45-MW solar facility remain, though McIntire said their fates may be uncertain as well.

“It was a shock to have a whole study cycle of projects in the MISO West region just fall out of the queue,” McIntire said.

A single wind or solar farm cannot be expected to fund transmission lines alone, and the lack of renewable development because of scarce transmission capacity in MISO West will mean communities that were expecting development might not see it, CGA argues.

For example, “the loss of 5,000 MW of renewable energy means losing an estimated $15 million, annually, in landowner payments,” CGA said, calling the situation “a really loud wake-up call.”

CGA also said the failed projects left more than $1 billion worth of production tax credits on the table.

“Without an immediate commitment to addressing the exorbitant cost of interconnecting new projects to the electric grid and a plan to strategically build new transmission lines, wind and solar development will be stalled for the foreseeable future,” CGA said.

‘Perfect Storm’ Thwarted

CGA argues the western MISO footprint should be prepping for a boom.

“The low cost and high demand should be the ingredients for a perfect storm of development, fueling terrific job growth and economic development for rural communities that are all too often struggling to maintain basic services without draining the pocketbooks of its citizens,” the group said.

Instead, CGA contends, a shortage of transmission capacity means millions in lost land leases, community tax revenue and jobs. The group points out that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that a 100-MW wind project supports 60 to 80 construction jobs and five to seven operations and maintenance jobs.

McIntire said a disconnect exists between MISO interconnection queue studies and those performed under the RTO’s annual Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP).

“What are the differences between these two study processes that show such different results?” McIntire asked, noting that interconnection studies show the need for high-cost upgrades when MTEP studies do not. She said the MTEP planning process “should at least be modeling” future generation resulting from customer demand and state and utility commitments.

McIntire also questioned why MISO’s reliability and economic planning studies under the annual transmission plan are conducted separately, with needs examined in isolation.

“Planning processes divided into silos driven by economic, reliability and interconnection needs result in smaller projects and abandon big-picture transmission planning that can solve multiple needs more efficiently,” she said, adding that the isolated studies often make for smaller, “piecemeal” transmission solutions.

MISO declined to comment for this story. However, RTO executives on a call of the Board of Directors’ System Planning Committee on Friday said it would take a Tariff filing to close the gap between identifying upgrades for its generation interconnection queue and transmission planning for the purposes of MTEP.

McIntire said CGA supports the direction MISO has taken on its new proposed futures, though they may not be enough.

MISO plans to hold another workshop to discuss its new, renewable-heavy futures proposal on Dec. 5. Last month the RTO released a trio of new planning future scenarios that include Industry-Announced Plans, Advanced Fleet Change 2.0 and Fleet Electrification. (See MISO Sets Course for New Futures.)

“The futures provide much more realistic bookends, which we support, but it’s hard to say whether those set of futures will result in the most efficient plan for all the needs on the system,” McIntire said, calling for more comprehensive transmission planning.

CGA said MISO could benefit from another transmission package akin to its 2011 multi-value portfolio (MVP), which produced 17 projects, and CapX2020’s five-project, 800-mile grid expansion in the Upper Midwest. The 10 Minnesota utilities behind CapX2020 have recently reunited for a CapX2050 study to identify transmission needs in Minnesota, eastern North Dakota and South Dakota, and western Wisconsin. (See Minnesota Utilities Reunite for CapX2050 Study.)

CGA argues that the MVP and CapX2020 have already “reached maximum capacity,” although the lines have been “enormously successful at enabling development and delivery” of renewable energy.

McIntire said a future transmission buildout doesn’t necessarily have to take the form of another MVP, but that MISO needs a “comprehensive long-term transmission process.”

“This whole process takes such a long time, and they’re behind. They really needed to start this three to five years ago,” she said.

According to McIntire, a 10-year lead time before anticipated in-service dates is ideal. “The planning process requires a few years; then it takes at least a few years for permitting and siting and construction,” she said.

She foresees a stalled MISO West with little renewable development over the next decade unless something changes.

“This is possibly just the beginning as similar situations to the recent interconnection request fallout may start to happen in other areas across the footprint. The region must start planning for what needs to be built next,” she said.

Don’t Wait on Load

McIntire acknowledges there isn’t much load growth in the region but said electric vehicle adoption may change the demand picture.

But growth predictions aren’t a justification for inaction, she said.

“It’s a question of the resource choices that consumers, states and utilities want to make.”

She said new, renewable generation can come online — not only to meet load growth — but to replace retiring thermal generation. These new resources can be the lower-cost option, even considering the costs of transmission construction to customers.

“When you’re building transmission to new generation, it can still be beneficial to consumers. If the overall cost of the generation is going down, there can still be a net benefit.”

McIntire also pointed out that there are costs associated with maintaining the lines and poles of increasingly aging infrastructure.

“We don’t just want to build transmission for transmission’s sake. We want to work with MISO and its transmission owners to help plan efficient transmission upgrades to meet a variety of needs,” she said.