By Amanda Durish Cook

Michigan is asking for another assessment from MISO, this time to study grid improvements across the state’s peninsulas and Canada.

The latest request, signed by Gov. Rick Snyder, asks MISO to study the reliability and affordability benefits of transmission and generator expansion in the northern part of the RTO’s footprint.

“Since Michigan has some of the highest prices for transmission in the MISO footprint, it makes sense to ask whether, in the long term, we can all spend less while increasing reliability by strengthening our ties to each other and our neighbors,” Snyder said.

The Michigan Agency for Energy (MAE) also joined in on the request.

“Michigan is in the middle of a transformation of our energy infrastructure in both peninsulas, and Ontario’s generation has changed a great deal, including the area just across the Soo,” said Valerie Brader, executive director of the agency, referring to the region encompassing the twin Sault Ste. Marie cities in Michigan and Ontario. “This study will help us identify whether, due to all these changes, there are new opportunities for infrastructure that will make Michigan more adaptable.”

MISO spokesman Jay Hermacinski said the RTO has contacted Michigan officials to discuss the governor’s request and the state’s Aug. 9 call for a reliability analysis that assumes simultaneous outages at the Palisades and Fermi 2 nuclear plants. (See Michigan Asks: Will the Lights Stay on If Nukes Go Dark?)

“At this early stage in the process, it is too soon to comment on the substance of requests or to establish a definitive timeline,” Hermacinski said.

The new request asks the RTO to study:

• Connecting Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula in Zone 2;
• Strengthening the connection between the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula in Zone 7 at the Straits of Mackinac down to “the northernmost part of the existing 345-kV transmission line near Gaylord, Mich.”;
• Production cost savings, reliability, resource adequacy and power flows assuming a large natural gas plant is built in Otsego or Kalkaska County in the northern Lower Peninsula. Michigan officials say that the area is ripe for a natural gas plant, as pipelines and storage in the area have available capacity, and an adequate transmission network exists.

MISO last completed a study of its northern footprint in 2012, but the connections to Canada were not analyzed, MAE said.

This time, Michigan is asking MISO to work with Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator and pointed out that the province’s next Long-Term Energy Plan process begins this summer. Since the 2012 study, the agency said, the area has experienced “significant infrastructure changes” with more to come. The letter points out that “many fundamental characteristics of the Bulk Electric System have evolved over the last five years on both sides of the international border, and change to the system is expected to accelerate within Michigan.”

Ontario ended coal-fired generation in 2014. Nuclear power, now 60% of the province’s generation output, is expected to drop to 40% by 2025. The province expects to add as much as 3,000 MW of capacity between 2021 and 2032. (See Ontario: Clean — and Expensive.)