By Amanda Durish Cook and Tom Kleckner

MISO’s rejection last week of the last possible transmission project resulting from a coordinated study with SPP surprised the latter RTO and left officials wondering whether the neighbors will ever build an interregional project.

MISO staff told its Planning Advisory Committee on Aug. 16 that it was no longer recommending the $5.2 million Split Rock-Lawrence initiative in South Dakota, which would have been the RTOs’ first-ever interregional project.

MISO now says an analysis of the project shows that congestion on the line can be managed for now and that another alternative project could provide the RTO with at least the same benefit at a lower cost.

The RTO originally forecast that the 115-kV circuit project into Sioux Falls would have a 4.79 benefit-cost ratio. The project was the only contender to come out of MISO and SPP’s coordinated system plan study last year, and MISO stakeholders voted in a nonbinding ballot to recommend the project to officials in both RTOs in May. (See MISO Stakeholders Give Go-Ahead on SD Interregional Project; MISO-SPP Coordinated Study Yields 1 Possible Project — For Now.)

SPP Surprised

SPP COO Carl Monroe told RTO Insider Friday that the RTO only discovered MISO’s recommendation through posted meeting materials and the ensuing coverage. “We’re disappointed we can’t find any of these types of projects,” Monroe said. “We go through the Order 1000 process, which, from the joint study, seems to have some benefits. But it just doesn’t seem like when we go to the individual [RTOs’] studies, it shows that type of benefits.”

The project was halted before it could clear the Joint RTO Planning Committee — composed of staff with ultimate say over interregional issues — and before it would have been recommended for inclusion in MISO’s 2017 Transmission Expansion Plan. The coordinated study was meant to focus on needs along the border of SPP’s Integrated System in North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa. Some MISO stakeholders expressed doubt at the beginning of the study that any projects would materialize.

MISO said the congested line in South Dakota is now operating as an open circuit under an operations guide proposed by Xcel Energy in May, which shifts some congestion to the nearby Sioux Falls–Split Rock 230-kV line. Had the project — which would have looped Xcel’s existing Split Rock-Lawrence 115-kV circuit into the Western Area Power Administration’s Sioux Falls station, crossing SPP territory — proceeded, Xcel would have been at risk of incurring SPP penalties for unreserved use of non-firm point-to-point transmission service, the RTO said.

MISO recommends maintaining the status quo and operating the Lawrence–Sioux Falls line in an open state to relieve the congestion for now, Davey Lopez, the RTO’s adviser of planning coordination and strategy, told the PAC. He added that the open state operation “provides MISO nearly the same adjusted production cost savings” as the interregional project at little to no cost.

However, MISO said it would continue to pursue upgrades to terminal equipment on the Lawrence–Sioux Falls line through joint efforts between MISO, Xcel, SPP and WAPA. The terminal upgrades would still represent a savings over the originally proposed loop project, MISO said.

Questions on Open Circuit

Monroe questioned MISO’s use of an open circuit, which can reduce reliability when congestion is shifted from one line to another. “Normally, we don’t run the system with open lines,” he said. “In some regards, it increases the risk you’re taking.”

Monroe said SPP has offered to go beyond FERC’s Order 1000 process to find “mechanisms and ways to share costs” to ensure both RTOs benefit from interregional projects, “but we haven’t found one of those.”

“It’s hard to say whether it’s the process or stakeholders or something,” Monroe said, “but we just haven’t been able to get across the goal line from the perspective of their regional review.”

SPP stakeholders have questioned the desire of MISO to develop interregional projects with its western neighbor. The two RTOs have now conducted two coordinated joint studies and failed to agree upon a single interregional project.

Adam McKinnie, utility economist for the Missouri Public Service Commission, said he had “severe concerns” that MISO was allowing a temporary operations plan to become a long-term solution for congestion.

“We couldn’t justify subjecting our customers to a $5 million project when there’s a no-cost solution available,” Lopez explained.

Seeking a ‘Willing Partner’

McKinnie also questioned if the SPP-MISO seam is receiving the same level of interregional coordination as the MISO-PJM seam. “I’m kind of tired of refereeing fights between MISO and SPP because my ratepayers pay for those fights,” he said, adding that SPP officials seem more receptive to interregional planning than those at MISO.

MISO staff countered that the RTO is looking for the most economic and efficient solution to the congestion.

MISO’s interregional project cost and voltage thresholds with SPP remain unchanged at $5 million and 345 kV, respectively. FERC ruled at the beginning of the year that MISO and SPP were not bound by its directive to PJM and MISO to remove identical thresholds. SPP had asked FERC last year to apply the same directive to the MISO-SPP seam.

Had the 115-kV Split Rock-Lawrence project won approval, MISO would have had to designate its portion of the project as “miscellaneous,” unable to qualify for cost allocation, because it does not meet the 345-kV voltage threshold required of its market efficiency projects.

“We just haven’t seen that ability, whether it’s because they don’t want to do it, or they don’t feel like they can do it, or the stakeholders don’t want it,” Monroe said. “I just don’t know where the resistance is. If you feel like these [projects] are good to do and you want to get them done, you can work through these issues, hopefully, and even demonstrate the rigidness of the problems that Order 1000 creates. We just haven’t found a willing partner on the other side to negotiate those issues.”

SPP’s Seams Steering Committee was to present the South Dakota project to the Markets and Operations Policy Committee in October, but that is unlikely to happen now, Monroe said. “You could probably believe we don’t have much hope that our members want to go ahead with this either, if MISO doesn’t want to,” he said.

It’s unclear how soon the RTOs will embark on another joint study. Last spring, MISO staff originally decided against a coordinated study, explaining that it was hoping to improve the process behind coordinated studies before taking up another one. Staff later reversed course and agreed to the 2016 coordinated study. A 2014-15 MISO-SPP coordinated study ran over deadline by three months and left both RTO staffs frustrated and empty-handed. (See SPP, MISO Try to Bridge Joint Study Scope Differences.)