By Tom Kleckner
With prospects for a second coordinated system plan study with MISO looking bleak, SPP’s Seams Steering Committee considered last week whether it might find some relief in a recent FERC order related to the MISO-PJM seam.
FERC last month ordered MISO and PJM to make changes in their interregional transmission planning process as a result of a complaint filed by Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (EL13-88). (See FERC Orders Changes to MISO-PJM Interregional Planning.)
That led the SSC — which met via conference call Friday as MISO and PJM were holding their Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee meeting — to wonder whether the commission’s directives in the NIPSCO docket would apply to the MISO-SPP seam as well.
“It’s hard for me to imagine the rationale for having different criteria for different seams,” SSC Chair Paul Malone said.
“If they change things on the PJM seam, I don’t see why [MISO] would be opposed to being consistent on the SPP seam,” American Electric Power’s Jim Jacoby said.
David Kelley, SPP’s director of interregional relations, noted that FERC directed MISO and PJM to make changes to their joint operating agreement’s cost allocation for interregional projects. The commission ordered that costs be allocated in proportion to the total benefits as calculated in “each RTO’s respective tariff,” rather than how benefits are calculated in the JOA.
FERC said with the change, “each RTO will then determine whether the potential interregional economic transmission project meets its individual 1.25-to-1 benefit-to-cost threshold using the RTO’s pro rata share of the total cost based on its share of the total dollar value of the benefits.”
“We have the same exact language PJM and MISO have. It’s hard for me to fathom there wouldn’t also be a directive to apply it to our seams,” Kelley said. “We don’t have a threshold test, which I believe MISO and PJM do, [but] the order asked them to get rid of it.”
Ameren’s Pat Hayes, who was also participating in the IPSAC meeting, told the SSC that MISO was planning to seek clarification from FERC on whether the NIPSCO issues were unique to the MISO-PJM interregional process or applied to all interregional processes.
SPP is not an intervenor in the docket, though some of its members, including AEP, are. “We’re more than happy to submit those questions” raised, AEP’s Kip Fox said.
Kelley said SPP is still digesting the order, but he promised to have more feedback for the committee’s June meeting.
MISO’s 345-kV threshold for interregional projects has been one of the stumbling blocks in selecting interregional projects on the MISO-SPP seam. The RTOs were unable to agree on a single project in last year’s joint study, and MISO staff is currently recommending not to pursue a second study this year. (See MISO, SPP Disagree on 2016 Joint Study.)
MISO’s Planning Advisory Committee is scheduled to take a final vote on whether to pursue the joint study during its May 18 meeting. SPP staff said stakeholders unable to participate in the March SPP-MISO IPSAC meeting had requested extra time and additional materials from MISO before making a decision.
The SSC voted last month to pursue a targeted transmission study with MISO. (See “Seams Steering Committee Seeks ‘Targeted’ MISO Seam Study,” SPP Briefs.) Staff said in the future, such votes will be held at joint IPSAC meetings to avoid delays.
SPP’s Gerardo Ugalde said MISO paid SPP more than $1 million for temporary and permanent flowgate relief in March. Since market-to-market operations began in March 2015, SPP has used the process to manage congestion on 45 SPP flowgates and 50 MISO flowgates, he said.
Ugalde shared staff’s analysis of flowgates where real-time congestion was observed for more than 10 days. SPP compared internal flows against firm-flow entitlements. But because the six-flowgate sample size was so small, staff is currently running studies to determine how day-ahead clearing would change if SPP started using FFE limits.
