MILWAUKEE — The final session of the Mid-America Regulatory Conference last week brought together top officials from MISO, SPP and PJM to discuss balancing short-term expectations with long-term planning.
Regrets? They had a few.
“We did not know how fast the wind would develop [in the Midwest] under state [renewable portfolio standards],” said PJM CEO Terry Boston, who will be retiring later this year. “If I reflect back, a plan to build HVDC from this area of the country into the Mid-Atlantic would have been an excellent plan.”
Sam Loudenslager, principal regulatory analyst for SPP, said his region was surprised by oil shale development.
He recalled a recent tour of the Bakken region in North Dakota. “I came back telling our planners, ‘You’re not going to get it. You’re going to miss this big time because it’s growing like nobody’s business,’” he recounted.
“They’ll continue to pump as long as oil’s $35 a barrel. And if you get to the heart of the Bakken, they’re pumping at $22. And these are areas that have no transmission whatsoever.”
Richard Doying, MISO’s executive vice president of operations and corporate services, lamented that officials had not anticipated the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan a decade ago. “When we were doing our initial transmission planning, 111(d) was not a significant focus,” he said.
