By Amanda Durish Cook

CARMEL, Ind. — MISO would reduce the price tag to enter its generator interconnection queue and provide “off ramps” for canceled projects under a final proposal presented Monday to the Planning Advisory Committee.

RTO officials said they reduced a proposed $60,000 refundable deposit for study models based on stakeholder feedback. Instead, interconnection customers would have to pay a non-refundable $5,000 study deposit.

Vikram Godbole, senior manager of MISO’s generator interconnection planning group, said the non-refundable charge facilitates trust between the RTO and interconnection customers. “We need to have a relationship with interconnection customers before providing models because there’s a lot of non-public information in these models,” Godbole explained in a presentation during a special PAC meeting.

Discussions on the proposed reforms will continue at the Dec. 16 PAC meeting, after which the proposal will open to a final round of stakeholder comments. MISO plans to file Tariff changes by the end of the year, Godbole said.

MISO last revised its queue rules in 2012. The current revisions have been under development since August. (See MISO Planning Advisory Committee Briefs.)

In addition to reducing the study fee, MISO has also cut its proposed M4 milestone by half; the new M4 cap will be set at $5,000/MW instead of $10,000/MW. The proposed $2,000/MW floor remains intact. MISO said it was responding to stakeholder comments that existing milestones are high and act as a barrier to entry.

Additionally, MISO has relaxed some rigidity surrounding its queue, allowing interconnection customers to receive M2, M3 and M4 refunds on projects that withdraw before the first decision point, which doesn’t occur until customers have the results of a system impact study.

Customers can also request provisional interconnection service up until their first decision point. Interconnection customers that request provisional interconnection service can now cancel their request, forgoing money spent on studies up to the cancellation date, and enter the definitive planning phase cycle.

“I think what we’ve done here is made this more flexible. If you want to proceed, that’s fine. If you don’t want to proceed, that’s fine too,” Godbole said. “The fact that we have these off-ramps built in; we expect that some interconnection customers will use them. I’m hoping these off-ramps will really help interconnection customers decide whether to get their M2 back.” MISO’s current queue doesn’t allow for the refund of M2 payment for withdrawing projects.

MISO has also eliminated the potential for restudies after customers execute a generation interconnection agreement.

“If any conditions change, we’re not going to rope you back into a restudy,” Godbole said.

“With the queue reform, one of the main goals was certainty,” MISO Director of Interconnection and Planning Tim Aliff said, explaining that if interconnection customers “have done their homework” on project feasibility and economics before entering the queue, M2, M3 and M4 payments will come back to them.

Aliff added that projects that withdraw and forfeit milestone payments will benefit other projects that complete generation interconnect agreements. “Your costs are offset by what others have left in the bucket,” he said.

Godbole said MISO has explored three transition options to the new queue rules, which are expected to take effect in February. In all three, MISO will grant existing projects priority over projects that have yet to join the queue. Interconnection customers will have the opportunity to request provisional agreements during the transition period to the new queue rules.

Godbole said MISO will produce a study calendar of pertinent dates after a transition plan is finalized.

“It’s in our best interests to do everything as quickly as possible,” Godbole said. He added that MISO plans to file Tariff changes by the end of the year. Discussions on queue reform will continue on Dec. 16’s Planning Advisory Committee where no formal action is anticipated. The queue reform proposal will then move into a stakeholder comment period.