By Amanda Durish Cook
MISO has notified FERC that it intends to terminate its system support resource agreement with Illinois Power Holdings’ Edwards unit 1 generator in Peoria, Ill., effective Jan. 1 (ER16-129).
MISO said an examination of Edwards 1’s retirement found that new transmission infrastructure, including the 345-kV Maple Ridge-Fargo line and Maple Ridge Substation, are on track for completion by mid-2016 and eliminate the need for the generator to continue under SSR status after this year.
“MISO determined that the last of the transmission reliability projects needed to permit the retirement of Edwards 1 remains on schedule for completion by June 1, 2016, to meet the peak conditions for which Edwards 1 was designated a SSR unit,” the RTO told the commission.
MISO notified Illinois Power in late September that the 90-MW coal-fired unit would be released from SSR status at the beginning of the year and that the agreement would not be renewed. The SSR agreement took effect in January 2013.
The termination of the SSR agreement comes two weeks after FERC affirmed that Edwards should be allowed to recover fixed costs through a full cost-of-service rate when operating is mandatory to maintain reliability. (See MISO SSR Unit’s Recovery of Fixed Costs Upheld.)
