Two SPP stakeholder groups have endorsed staff’s recommendation to remove a Southwestern Public Service 345-kV line from projects recommended in the 2017 Integrated Transmission Planning 10-year assessment.
The Transmission and Economic Studies working groups met jointly April 3 to vote on staff’s re-evaluation of the 90-mile Potter-Tolk transmission line in the Texas Panhandle, one of 14 projects in the 2017 ITP10.
SPP’s Board of Directors and Members Committee directed staff in January to further evaluate the transmission line following pushback from SPS, which said it was “the wrong time” for the line. (See “Board Sends $144M Tx Project Back for Re-evaluation,” SPP Board of Directors/Members Committee Briefs.)
Staff gathered feedback from members in the West Texas/New Mexico area to determine expectations on resource expansion, load growth, gas prices and avoided reliability projects. A third-party review using more detailed routing assumptions increased the project’s $144 million cost estimate to $173 million, identifying a need to lengthen the project from 90 miles to 109.
ITC Holdings abstained from both working group votes, saying it believes “more realistic analysis scenarios” provide support for including the project in the ITP10 portfolio. Golden Spread Electric Cooperative abstained from the ESWG vote, citing positive benefit-cost ratios for the scenarios that included 8.8 GW of additional wind. South Central MCN abstained from the TWG vote over concerns with the re-evaluation process and modeling updates and adjustments.
Separately, the TWG unanimously approved the 2017 ITP near-term assessment, which includes 16 reliability projects at a combined cost of approximately $60 million. The Markets and Operations Policy Committee and board will vote on the near-term ITP and take up the Potter-Tolk recommendation at their April meetings.
MISO Tops $15M in M2M Payments to SPP
MISO has paid SPP a net $15.3 million in market-to-market payments since the two RTOs began M2M activity in March 2015, SPP’s Will Ragsdale told the Seams Steering Committee on April 5.
MISO is responsible for seven of the top 10 congested flowgates between the two RTOs, resulting in $12.7 million in M2M payments. SPP has paid MISO $4.3 million for the other three flowgates in the top 10.
SPP’s M2M report for February indicates MISO paid just more than $889,950 for 434 hours of binding temporary and permanent flowgates.
MMU Market Report Shows Wind Up, Coal Down
Wind energy accounted for almost a quarter of all energy produced this winter, according to the SPP Market Monitoring Unit’s State of the Market report released last week.
Wind generation produced 23% of the footprint’s energy this winter (December-February), compared to 18% in 2016 and 15% in 2015. That corresponded with a drop in coal-fueled production, to 52% from nearly 58% in 2015.
The MMU said gas costs continue to rise in the region, with an average of $3.08/MMBtu at the Panhandle Hub, compared to $1.98/MMBtu in 2016. The rise in gas costs also resulted in increased LMPs; the average real-time LMP went from $17.82/MWh in 2016 to $24.57/MWh, and the average day-ahead LMP went from $18.33/MWh to $24.14/MWh.
— Tom Kleckner
