CARMEL, Ind. — The review process for MISO’s Business Practices Manuals has been rewritten to clarify the RTO’s obligations and the Planning Advisory Committee’s role.
The revised language directs MISO to identify “outstanding or unresolved issues” when presenting BPM changes to the PAC, adds “timing concerns” to the process and allows the committee to modify changes to manuals brought forward by subgroups, instead of delegating work back to the original subgroup.
Matthew Tackett, a MISO principal adviser, said the goal was to make the steps of the evaluation clearer. The language rework was first brought up at the Nov. 11 PAC meeting.
MISO is asking for stakeholder comments on the edits through Jan. 22. A finalized version of the language will return to the February PAC meeting for approval.
MISO Adds Conditions for Stakeholder Notification and Advice into Expedited Review Process
MISO reviewed with the PAC proposed revisions to BPM 020 governing the expedited review process, which will replace out-of-cycle reviews.
The revisions require MISO to “promptly” notify stakeholders of expedited projects whose voltage, cost and other criteria would otherwise make it subject to competitive bidding under FERC Order 1000. Projects will be ineligible for expedited status if they meet criteria for market efficiency projects and “are not needed to meet the obligations or requirements of the transmission owner.”
Tackett said the size criteria was instituted so stakeholders wouldn’t be notified too many times in a cycle. “I use the analogy of junk mail. You get too many and you start saying ‘Oh I don’t care about that,’ and you miss the $300 million one,” Tackett said.
Chris Plante with Wisconsin Public Service Corp. said that an “open, collaborative process requires that stakeholders know what’s going on.” Plante pointed out that in the past there’s been “at least one” large out-of-cycle project that didn’t continue in the process once stakeholders had the opportunity to weigh in on its usefulness and urgency.
The changes also require MISO staff to consider the PAC’s input in deciding whether to bring the requested project to the attention of the Board of Directors’ System Planning Committee. “Stakeholders may also provide advice relative to the project to the SPC and/or the board in accordance with the protocols of the Advisory Committee,” the manual says.
“We realize this is a very controversial subject. There’s a time to move on and then there’s consensus, and this may be an example of that,” said Tackett, explaining that MISO is allowing further rounds of discussion.
Final Review on Minimum Project Requirements for Competitive Bidding Pushed Back
MISO asked for another round of comments by Jan. 12 on BPM 029, which defines the requirements of transmission projects eligible for competitive bidding.
Tackett said he didn’t think any conflicts would arise between the manual and the competitive bidding process for the Duff-Coleman project. He said the manual would be a living document and subject to further improvements but couldn’t foresee a needed change over the next six months as bids are prepared.
“It deals with topics where there’s lots of different opinions on how to do things,” Tackett commented. “I like to call it ‘version one final.’”
Nearly Half of All MTEP Projects in Service, MISO Reports
Almost half of all projects included in the MISO Transmission Expansion Plan were in-service as of the third quarter of 2015, Senior Transmission Planning Engineer Matt Ellis told the PAC in the bi-annual MTEP status update.
MISO reported that 47% of the $22.5 billion in MTEP projects given the go-ahead since 2003 are in service, while 39% remain in the planning stages. Another 8% are currently under construction and the remaining 7% have been withdrawn. The latest numbers do not include projects in the recently approved MTEP15. (See MISO Board of Directors Briefs.)
Ellis said the latest cost estimates on economic-based projects were positive, with benefit-to-cost ratios above projections. He also said almost all of MISO’s baseline reliability projects are on schedule.
“MISO’s post-approval role is to provide transparency,” Ellis said of the update. He added that MISO’s transparency goal will become more challenging with the introduction of competitive bidding, since transmission cost estimates submitted in the developer selection process are considered commercially sensitive information.
Loss of Load Working Group to be Absorbed Under Redesign
PAC Chairman Bob McKee said the committee is “getting off light” compared to assignments doled out to other MISO groups under the stakeholder redesign, with only a short to-do list. The PAC will absorb the Loss of Load Expectation Working Group into a broader, yet-to-be-formed Resource Adequacy Committee. There is no timeline yet on when the move will happen.
“It’s was a nice interactive approach between the stakeholders and MISO,” McKee said of the redesign.
— Amanda Durish Cook
