SPP and MISO have ended months of uncertainty by agreeing to a second joint system study, which will take a “targeted” look at the two entities’ newly created Integrated System seam in the Upper Midwest.

SPP staff told the Seams Steering Committee, which met in Dallas on June 8, that the MISO members of the Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee (IPSAC) voted last month to pursue the study. The Joint Planning Committee, composed of SPP’s David Kelley, director of interregional relations, and MISO’s Eric Thoms, manager of planning coordination and strategy, made it official May 31 when the two agreed to begin the study.

The RTOs conducted their first joint study last year, identifying three potential interregional transmission projects. However, they were unable to reach agreement on pursuing any of them. (See SPP, MISO Conclude Joint Study Empty-Handed.)

SPP’s interregional coordinator, Adam Bell, said both staffs have begun discussions on the study’s scope. He said the staffs are planning to discuss the draft scope at a possible IPSAC meeting in July and hopes to wrap up the study in the first quarter of 2017.

Kelley told the committee both staffs have a “desire” to do a larger study, but they are constrained by lack of manpower.

Bell said SPP will continue discussions with MISO to incorporate process improvements identified by stakeholders during the IPSAC’s March meeting.

SPP also is conducting a joint study with Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. (See SPP, AECI Endorse Scope for 2016 Joint Planning Study.)

Staff told the committee the study is focused on five “target areas” in AECI’s footprint where there have been recurring operational problems:

• Northeast Oklahoma (potential overloads, voltage issues);
• Southwest Missouri (potential overloads, voltage issues);
• Central Missouri (potential low-voltage issues);
• Wheaton area, southwest Missouri (potential upgrades); and
• Mid-Missouri (potential low voltages).

“The scope was intentionally left broad to give us the flexibility we need to create these … areas and most efficiently target them,” Bell said. “Some stem from operational issues we see regularly that aren’t showing up in typical planning areas.”

The models are to be developed by the end of July, with preliminary results due in November and a final report in January.

Committee Recommends SPP Intervene in FERC’s NIPSCO Docket

The SSC unanimously endorsed a motion recommending SPP intervene at FERC in an ongoing dispute between MISO and PJM over their interregional planning (EL 13-88).

MISO and PJM have until June 20 to submit a compliance filing responding to an April 21 order in which the commission partially denied and granted a 2013 complaint by Northern Indiana Public Service Co. over the RTOs’ processes. (See MISO, PJM Working to Comply with NIPSCO Order.)

SPP’s options are limited because it did not intervene before the order was issued. Given choices between intervening out-of-time, commenting on MISO’s eventual compliance order or petitioning for a declaratory order, the committee voted to recommend the RTO “intervene out-of-time without comments but justification.”

“It’s really hard to come in at this late stage and ask for standing in the case,” Kelley said. He suggested SPP could intervene once MISO and PJM make their filing and potential Tariff changes.

The vote was partially driven by SPP member ITC Holdings’ intervention in the case. ITC, one of seven intervenors to request a rehearing of the order, said the commission should clarify that its directives to MISO also apply to potential interregional economic projects along the SPP-MISO seam.

FERC directed MISO to lower its interregional project voltage threshold with PJM from 345 kV to 100 kV and remove the $5 million minimum cost requirement. MISO currently has the same 345-kV threshold for economic projects along its seam with SPP, which has limited the ability of the entities to agree on interregional projects.

Staff reminded members that FERC is under no obligation to accept ITC’s request or clarify the applicability issue.

“My analysis leads me to believe … the commissioners probably won’t answer ITC,” SPP attorney Matthew Harward said. “If it grants ITC’s request for clarification, that could potentially impact SPP.”

Harward said he understood that several motions opposing ITC’s request have been filed, but he had yet to review them.

Kelley said MISO staff has told him the RTO is “taking the policy position that these things do not apply” to SPP and MISO and that the order is related only to the MISO-PJM seam.

Harward seemed to agree. “The order is narrowly drawn for the PJM-MISO seam,” he said.

— Tom Kleckner