By Tom Kleckner

SPP’s Regional State Committee last week approved a process for reviewing new members’ effect on regional cost allocation, but not before rejecting language that stakeholders have been unable to agree on since July.

The RSC approved the Cost Allocation Working Group’s New Member Cost Allocation Review Process after deleting an introductory paragraph that dealt with the effective date for highway/byway cost sharing. The committee asked the working group to revise the paragraph and bring it back in October after SPP staff raised objections in July.

John Krajewski, a consultant with the Nebraska Power Review Board, said the CAWG never reached consensus on whether to include the paragraph in the document but felt the language was “reasonable” if the RSC decided to keep it. The revised paragraph specified that “the effective date of cost sharing is an area over which the RSC has primary responsibility.”

At issue was whether the language “tied the hands” of the RSC.

The RSC tied 5-5 on following the CAWG’s recommendation to include the language. The committee then unanimously approved the document without the introductory paragraph.

The document creates a roadmap for the RSC and CAWG to follow when a potential new member asks for significant changes to the Tariff or membership agreement that would affect the committee’s regional cost allocation.

The process became necessary after the Integrated System joined SPP last October, when much of the negotiation over the integration took place between the new members and staff. The parties agreed to propose to current members and the RSC a method to include the new system under SPP’s highway/byway funding methodology, while also providing the Western Area Power Administration’s Upper Great Plains Region a federal service exemption from regional funding.

Committee Elects 2017 Officers

The meeting was New Mexico Public Regulation Commission Chairman Patrick Lyons’ last as RSC chair; he will relinquish the gavel at the end of the year.

“It’s been a learning experience,” Lyons said. “I’ve learned people really do care what the ratepayers have to pay.”

The committee unanimously approved Missouri Public Service Commissioner Stephen Stoll as its chair for 2017, Kansas Corporation Commissioner Shari Albrecht as vice chair and South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner Kristie Fiegen as secretary and treasurer.

Members also approved a 2017 budget of $321,700, an $8,400 increase over this year’s because of higher travel expenses.