By Rich Heidorn Jr. and Amanda Durish Cook

FERC issued seven orders Wednesday revising how MISO deals with its neighbors when incorporating power flows between the RTO and Manitoba Hydro.

The changes affect bidirectional external asynchronous resources (EARs). FERC defines an EAR as “a resource representing an asynchronous DC tie between the synchronous Eastern Interconnection grid and an asynchronous grid that is supported … through dynamic interchange schedules.” Only Manitoba Hydro’s generation currently meets the EAR definition in MISO.

Until 2015, the utility’s hydropower was a dispatchable import into the MISO footprint. In March 2015, however, the RTO and Manitoba began a bidirectional service that allowed the RTO to also export to its northern neighbor.

MISO said the revisions to the baseline congestion management process align the treatment of export EARs with the treatment of import EARs in the market flow calculations under its congestion management process.

FERC on Wednesday approved revisions, effective June 1, 2017, to:

• Attachment LL of the MISO Tariff (ER17-1302);
• Rate Schedule 8, the Seams Operating Agreement between the RTO and Manitoba Hydro (ER17-1303);
• Rate Schedule 46, the Coordination and Operating Agreement between the RTO and Minnkota Power Cooperative (ER17-1304);
• The joint operating agreement between MISO and PJM (ER17-1305), including PJM’s revisions (ER17-1306); and
• The JOA between MISO and SPP (ER17-1332), including SPP’s revisions (ER17-1333).

MISO’s proposed changes followed an August 2015 memorandum of understanding among MISO, PJM and SPP that addressed EARS and other seams coordination issues. The RTO and Manitoba subsequently agreed to amend their Seams Operating Agreement, and MISO received guidance from NERC that resulted in additional proposed changes to the congestion management process.

The revised MISO-SPP JOA creates a process under which MISO will, on request, conduct studies to determine the flowgates impacted by an EAR.

MISO’s revised JOAs with SPP and PJM add an additional notification requirement when an RTO permanently adds or removes a point of interconnection.

The changes to the MISO-PJM JOA also detail other information sharing obligations and align day-ahead energy market coordination and the auction revenue rights/financial transmission rights with market-to-market settlement practices, MISO said.