MISO has successfully filed its first revised interconnection agreements since FERC reinstated transmission owners’ rights to self-fund network upgrades.
The commission on Thursday accepted amended documents stemming from the development of wind farms and natural gas generation — and rejected another that didn’t fall within the effective period.
FERC in late 2019 decided that generator interconnection agreements struck between June 24, 2015, and Aug. 31, 2018, should be revised to allow TOs the option to have first crack at initial funding of network upgrades, rather than interconnection customers. Since then, some MISO wind developers have been refusing to sign facilities service agreements between themselves, TOs and the RTO in protest. (See More Unexecuted FSAs in MISO Self-funding Squabble.)
MISO is refiling various past agreements for TOs that want the chance to finance network upgrades themselves.
The commission accepted new facilities service and multiparty facilities construction agreements among MISO, interconnection customer Northern States Power, and TOs Otter Tail Power and Montana-Dakota Utilities (ER20-2322). The retooled agreement is associated with the Dakota Range I and II wind farms and the $9 million in network upgrades needed to connect it.
However, FERC said language stipulating the TOs return collected invoices to Northern States is unjust and ordered MISO to correct it. The commission said Otter Tail’s amended facilities construction agreement explicitly states that it will refund invoices collected for the upgrades, while MDU’s separate agreement is missing the same refund promise.
FERC also accepted a refile of a circa-2017 agreement between Northern States as both interconnection customer and TO for the conversion of its Black Dog Generating Station from coal- to gas-fired (ER20-2364). Because the July 7, 2020, effective date is about a week later than MISO originally requested, the commission directed the RTO to recalculate the net book value of the about $400,000 in network upgrades in order to refund Northern States’ development arm.
Finally, FERC shut down an attempted refile between interconnection customer Great River Energy and Otter Tail over a $2.3 million upgrade in North Dakota necessary for a 50-MW wind farm and subsequent expansion by another 49 MW (ER20-2352).
FERC said Otter Tail was attempting to take over upgrade financing when the projects’ agreements predated the June 24, 2015, through Aug. 31, 2018, time frame. It blocked the amended agreements.
“The commission has previously found that the terms of a tariff that should apply are the terms in the tariff that are effective and on file on the date that the interconnection agreement is executed or initially filed unexecuted with the commission. As a result of this finding, the commission has declined to modify network upgrade funding terms from interconnection agreements that predate revisions to the relevant tariff provisions,” FERC said.
After some digging, the commission found mention of the first 50-MW development in 2008’s Electric Quarterly Reports. FERC also said it found a 2011 amended interconnection to upsize the project in its own archives. The last amended agreement commission staff found on the project was filed unexecuted May 18, 2015.
