By Tom Kleckner
NERC is offering SPP’s 128 registered entities a chance to comment after assigning them all to a new Regional Entity.
The reassignments became necessary when the SPP RE announced its dissolution in July, addressing NERC and FERC concerns over its reliability oversight role. (See SPP to Dissolve Regional Entity.) Responses are due back to the organization by Jan. 5.
NERC said it received 122 transfer requests spanning five REs, with six entities expressing no preference for a “transferee” RE. The organization placed most of the registered entities into the Midwest Reliability Organization (MRO), with 13 Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri entities assigned to SERC Reliability.
Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., which provides power to Arkansas’ 17 distribution cooperatives, was placed in both MRO and SERC.
In a message to the registered entities, RE President Ron Ciesiel said it was the RE’s “understanding” that NERC is on target to present final transferee recommendations to the organization’s Board of Trustees at its February meeting.
“We believe there is a high probability the transfer can be completed in the July time frame,” Ciesiel said.
After an initial review and analysis of entity requests, NERC said it determined that granting all the requests “would neither result in effective and efficient administration of compliance and enforcement activities, nor a cohesive functional alignment to support and promote BPS [bulk power system] reliability and security.”
In reviewing the requests, NERC considered the location of an entity’s BPS facilities in relation to the geographic and electrical boundaries of the transferee RE. The agency also assessed the impact of a proposed transfer on other BPS owners, operators and users, including affected reliability coordinators, balancing authorities and transmission operators, as appropriate.
NERC said it recognized that its procedural rules do not contain criteria for “the allocation of multiple registered entity transfers” when an RE dissolves, so it used criteria from another rule for considering requests. The organization reviewed each transfer request using that criteria and other “entity-specific circumstances.”
When NERC’s recommendations differed from the entities’ requests, it contacted the entities and explained its rationale, the agency said.
Created in 2007, the SPP RE is responsible for auditing and enforcing NERC reliability rules in three balancing authorities: SPP, the Southwestern Power Administration and parts of MISO.
SPP said it is dissolving the RE in part because the RTO’s expanded footprint no longer aligns with the RE’s territory. However, FERC criticized SPP in a 2008 audit for failing to ensure the RE’s independence from the RTO.
Calling 2017 a “tumultuous year for SPP RE,” Ciesiel told its registered entities that RE staff, while working at reduced levels, achieved its highest ever metrics performance.
“A good way to close out the year for us,” he said.
The dissolution is expected to be completed by the end of next year.
