CARMEL, Ind. — MISO announced this week that it has shortened one of the 345-kV lines contained in its $2 billion Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue (JTIQ) portfolio with SPP, which will lower costs.
At a July 19 Planning Advisory Committee meeting, Director of Resource Utilization Andy Witmeier announced that MISO will replace the Brookings County-Lakefield 345-kV project in Minnesota with the shorter Lyons County-Lakefield 345-kV project. He said MISO was making the change because it approved Northern States Power’s proposal to install a second 345-kV circuit between the Brookings County and Lyon County substations in Minnesota for reliability reasons as part of the 2022 MISO Transmission Expansion Plan. That nearby project negates the need for a full-length line.
Witmeier said the “much shorter line, as the crow flies,” represents a significant savings for customers. He said the new line will solve all the same constraints as the original design but with a better benefit-to-cost ratio. MISO has already performed economic and reliability analyses on the shorter route. Transmission owners Xcel Energy and ITC Holdings will still build the line.
Witmeier said the JTIQ portfolio, which was finalized in 2021, is subject to revisions as MISO and SPP perform their annual transmission planning. He also said since the revised line remains wholly in Minnesota, it won’t require a change in permitting jurisdiction.
MISO has yet to reveal how much ratepayers can expect to save on the shorter line. Last month, the RTOs announced that the portfolio’s cost estimate had nearly doubled to $1.9 billion from a little more than $1 billion in 2021 due to the rising cost of materials and labor and more accurate line route estimates. (See JTIQ Portfolio Cost Estimate Nearly Doubles to $1.9B.)
Witmeier said he didn’t think the more economical line would affect the states’ application for the JTIQ portfolio to receive up to a 50% funding match from the Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program.
