FERC recently approved SPP’s tariff revisions to its transmission planning process that establish new study processes for transmission-owning members (ER23-567).

The commission in its May 26 order found the changes to be just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential. It accepted them effective Feb. 6, as SPP requested. It said SPP’s proposal increases transparency into staff’s review of transmission owner (TO) projects and helps ensure those projects receive the “appropriate cost allocation.”

The grid operator’s revisions allow it to evaluate TO projects’ reliability impacts before their inclusion into the integrated transmission planning process and confirm that they are eligible for zonal cost allocation. Zonal reliability upgrades identified by a TO will only be eligible for zonal cost allocation if SPP can confirm they relieve a zonal planning criteria violation and conform to applicable facility design criteria.

If the projects don’t meet the criteria, they will be designated as sponsored upgrades and their costs directly assigned to the sponsoring TO.

Commissioners Allison Clements and Mark Christie jointly concurred with the decision, writing that SPP’s proposed revision is “consistent with existing precedent” and improves the status quo. However, they said the filing raised a much bigger concern about the need to ensure any future transmission development is cost effective, as expressed during a technical conference in October. (See FERC Tech Conference Highlights Regulatory Gaps on Transmission Oversight.)

“It is our hope that the commission addresses these issues in that proceeding, and we additionally encourage SPP to make further improvements to its process,” the commissioners said, noting that the RTO’s planning process “appears to have significant room for further improvement.”

Storage As Tx Assets

In a separate order issued May 26, FERC accepted SPP’s proposal to treat electric storage resources as transmission assets (ER22-2344).

The commission said the grid operator’s proposal to define storage as a transmission-only asset (SATOA) and add language addressing cost allocation and recovery, transmission planning, interconnection, market participation and market monitoring issues is just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential.

SPP’s proposed framework results in the SATOAs’ selection only when they perform a transmission function. Under the RTO’s definition, the asset must be under SPP’s operational control and connected to the system as a transmission facility solely to support the system. It also must be identified or selected in planning processes as the preferred solution to resolve transmission issues.

SATOAs’ participation in the markets is limited to only charging from, and discharging to, the transmission system as necessary to provide the services for which it was issued a notification to construct. FERC said that under those circumstances, SATOAs are properly characterized as transmission assets and the costs of a SATOA are appropriately recoverable through transmission rates.  

“Because the operation of a SATOA would be limited to serving a transmission function, it is appropriate that a SATOA recover costs in the same manner as existing transmission facilities in the same transmission project category,” the commission wrote. “In addition, cost allocation for a SATOA is appropriately limited to the cost of the maximum capacity needed to address the identified transmission issue and is prorated on that basis if a SATOA of higher capacity is constructed.”

The American Clean Power Association and the Advanced Power Alliance led clean energy entities in requesting that FERC require SPP to add a restriction in its tariff on the use of SATOAs so they can be used only to address “non-routine” reliability transmission issues. They contended that the RTO’s proposed tariff language could permit SATOAs to be used for more routine transmission issues within each resource’s voltage parameters.

The commission declined clean energy’s request, noting that the proposal restricts a SATOA from resolving a transmission need for which a market solution exists. FERC said SPP will only evaluate a storage solution as a potential SATOA to address an identified transmission issue if it has unique characteristics or circumstances to meet transmission system performance requirements that are not available at comparable costs from other proposed solutions.