LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Board of Directors’ System Planning Committee last week reviewed the status of the 2015 MISO Transmission Expansion Plan, dissecting a few large and contentious projects.
MTEP15, which will be finalized by the board in December, is expected to include 357 projects valued at $2.6 billion. The Planning Advisory Committee voted Oct. 14 to recommend the plan for board approval; the Advisory Committee will consider it in November.
“It’s a big footprint and a lot of different jurisdictions,” said MISO board member Michael Evans, remarking on the 70-plus meetings held thus far on the plan.
Duff-Rockport-Coleman Project
The plan will include the Duff-Rockport-Coleman 345-kV project in Southern Indiana, the RTO’s first project to be competitively bid.
MISO is responsible for the Duff–Coleman portion, estimated at $67.4 million, while PJM will cover the cost of the tie-in to the Rockport substation. The go-ahead on MISO’s portion of the project does not hinge on PJM’s approval of its tie-in project. (See MISO Staff Recommends 3 Economic Projects.)
Paul Kelly, director of federal regulatory policy for Northern Indiana Public Service Co., applauded MISO’s suggestion of an interregional committee for handling such projects in the future. NIPSCO had objected that the project wasn’t studied enough under the MISO-PJM Joint Operating Agreement to flesh out cross-border benefits and RTO cost allocations.
“While we think this project is valid and should be built, we think there are additional efficiencies that might have been squeezed out of this if it were looked at as an interregional project,” Kelly said.
Jennifer Curran, MISO’s vice president of system planning and seams coordination, acknowledged concerns that PJM’s involvement could add complexity to the competitive bidding process. She said that the situation provided an opportunity to refine “hybrid” projects.
“We remain committed to working towards that goal” of interregional transmission project development, she said.
In that vein, MISO is discussing with ERCOT a potential study on ways to increase transfers between the two regions.
Texas Project
MISO said it is considering a minor design modification suggested by Entergy to an economic project in East Texas included in MTEP15.
The $122.5 million project includes a new 230-kV line from Lewis Creek to a new 345/230-kV substation that will cut into the Grimes-Crocket 345-kV line and a rebuild of the Newton Bulk–Leach 138-kV line.
Resource Adequacy Update
Curran gave the committee a long-term resource adequacy update, saying MISO has high certainty of obtaining 2.6 GW of new resources by 2020 (those under construction or subject to interconnection agreements), with 2.3 GW coming from natural gas, 135 MW from wind and 81 MW from hydro.
The RTO also has 5.3 GW of generation in final studies or seeking regulatory approval. The confidence level for those developments being completed is 50%.
Finally, MISO set a 10% confidence for the completion of 20.7 GW of other active queue projects and for 2.1 GW of generation reported in the MISO-Organization of MISO States survey but not in the queue.
The survey predicts a regional surplus of 1.7 to 2.3 GW for 2016, with sufficient zonal surpluses to offset zonal shortfalls until 2020. The 2014 survey had predicted a 2.3-GW regional shortfall in 2015. (See MISO Survey: No Shortfall Until 2020.)
MISO stakeholders are considering several changes in time for the 2017-18 planning year, including seasonal capacity auctions and speeding up the interconnection queue process by reducing restudies and study cycle timelines.
— Amanda Durish Cook
