FERC last week accepted SPP’s proposed Tariff revisions to identify the U.S.-Canada border as the point-of-sale for potential transactions with Canadian transmission service providers (ER16-704).
The commission’s March 8 order found “establishing a point of demarcation for transactions between SPP and Canadian entities … will clarify the regulatory authorizations required by market participants on both sides of the border for international exports and imports between SPP and Canada.” FERC said the demarcation clarifies that those transactions must be reported to the U.S. Department of Energy and Canada’s National Energy Board.
The order is subject to an SPP compliance filing, due April 7. The RTO said it will modify its Tariff by using the term “source” instead of “resource,” addressing Manitoba Hydro’s assertion that the latter term creates two distinct classes of offers that would restrict transactions by non-resource offers.
SPP gained its interconnection with Canada when Basin Electric Power Cooperative joined the RTO as part of last year’s addition of the Integrated System. (See Integrated System to Join SPP Market Oct. 1.)
SPP told FERC the interconnection allows Canadian utilities to participate in its Integrated Marketplace. It said the Tariff revisions are necessary “to allow Canadian entities to register resources and make them available under SPP’s market rules.”
The RTO completed its first international transaction late last year, importing power from Canadian electric utility SaskPower during a mid-December “emergency situation” in North Dakota. (See SPP, SaskPower Make First International Trade.)
SPP Nears ERCOT’s Wind Penetration Levels
SPP set new records for wind penetration last week, putting it within a whisker of ERCOT for the national record.
The RTO established a new record March 7, when its 9,450 MW of wind energy represented 45.08% of its total load (20,960 MW). That broke the record set the day before, when SPP reported a 44.77% penetration level (9,715 MW of 21,700 MW).
SPP’s wind penetration record is within a tenth of a percentage point of ERCOT’s. The Texas grid operator’s 45.14% record was set Feb. 18, when wind energy produced 13,907 MW.
“We continue to see a lot of wind capacity added,” SPP’s engineering vice president, Lanny Nickell, told stakeholders March 9. He said the footprint’s coal consumption has dropped by about 6% over the last three years, replaced by wind and natural gas.
Wind energy accounted for 13.5% of SPP’s electric production last year, trailing coal (55.1%) and natural gas (21.6%), but surpassing nuclear (8.1%). The RTO had 12,397 MW of installed wind capacity in 2015, accounting for 14.9% of its total. It says it has an additional 33,819 MW under development.
ERCOT has 15,764 MW of installed wind capacity. Wind energy accounted for 18.4% of its electric production in 2015.
— Tom Kleckner
