By Amanda Durish Cook
CARMEL, Ind. — MISO is preparing stakeholders for the first reuse of Transmission Expansion Plan futures, but some stakeholders are asking for a pause to review the scenarios for the 2017 plan because of the uncertainty of carbon-emission policies under the Trump administration.
MISO policy studies engineer Matt Ellis said “barring any significant change in policy or economic drivers,” the RTO’s 2018 Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP 18) futures will largely mirror MTEP 17 futures, due to be finalized next month. MISO is not planning a “wholesale redevelopment” of futures as in prior years, he said.
Future development in 2018 will be discussed at a yet-unannounced stakeholder workshop in early April. Ellis said MTEP 17 futures were intended for use in multiple cycles, but MISO will still “review definitions and discuss potential changes to ensure validity.” 2018 futures are to be finalized at the Planning Advisory Committee meeting in August and study results are expected in October.
“Futures haven’t changed much in the last 10 years,” Ellis explained at the Jan. 18 PAC meeting.
Ellis said year-to-year uncertainties such as the rate of fleet change and economic and temperature changes will be examined before reusing 15-year futures. He added that variables such as natural gas prices, topology, siting locations and demand could be adjusted annually. Ellis also said MISO would assess the variety of projects in the interconnection queue and public announcements from developers to inform the futures. Reuse of MTEP futures was recently added to Business Practices Manual 020, which covers long-term planning. (See “MISO to Update Long-Term Planning BPM,” MISO Planning Advisory Committee Briefs.)
Stakeholders have asked what fine-tuning might occur annually and which changes would be considered significant enough to spur futures redevelopment, Ellis said. “Ever since November, I’ve received many questions. Any time there’s a change in presidential leadership, there’s bound to be a change in policy. … All fair questions,” he said.
Ellis said MISO will reweight the scenarios annually because of uncertainty over future carbon regulations. MISO’s futures weighting assigns a probability-based likelihood to each MTEP planning scenario. In MTEP 17, existing trends were given 31% consideration, policy regulations were given 43% and accelerated alternative technologies received 26%. (See “MISO Posts Final MTEP 17 Weighting, Siting and Seeks Scope Feedback,” MISO Planning Advisory Committee Briefs.)
Multiple stakeholders, however, asked for re-evaluation of MTEP 17 weighting considering President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to cancel EPA’s Clean Power Plan. They said less emphasis on policy regulations might be in order.
Steve Leovy of WPPI Energy said he supported the potential revision of MTEP 17 weights. “Four, five, six months from now, we might have a better idea of what regulations might be in place,” he said.
Adam McKinnie, a Missouri Public Service Commission economist representing the state regulatory sector, said it would be useful if MISO staff could explain why changes cannot be made to MTEP 17 weighting.
Ellis said a presentation could be arranged for the February PAC meeting.
