MISO and SPP staff have alerted their stakeholders that they have completed the annual issues review process and are developing the 2024 coordinated system plan’s study scope as they try once again to find a mutually suitable interregional joint project. 

In an email to stakeholders last week, the grid operators said their representatives had concluded two joint planning committee meetings reviewing feedback from stakeholders on “issues potentially benefiting” from interregional studies. The RTOs also gathered feedback from the Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee (IPSAC) in February. (See MISO, SPP to Conduct Interregional Study in 2024.) 

MISO and SPP will review the 2024 CSP’s study scope with stakeholders during an upcoming IPSAC meeting yet to be scheduled. 

The grid operators’ joint operating agreement requires them to conduct a joint study every two years. Five previous studies have failed to produce any joint projects over differences in how to allocate costs. (See MISO, SPP Fall Short in 5th Try for Interregional Projects.) 

Ex-SPP Director Joins PUD Board

Former SPP Director Phyllis Bernard has been chosen to fill a commissioner’s unexpired term on a Washington county utility’s board. She will be sworn in May 1. 

Bernard will fill the remainder of Jim Waddell’s term on the Clallam County Public Utility District’s three-member Board of Commissioners. That term expires after Clallam County’s November general election is certified. The county is near Olympic National Park, northwest of Seattle. 

Waddell, the PUD’s commission chair since 2023, died in February. 

Bernard retired from SPP’s Board of Directors in 2019 after 16 years of service. (See “Last Meeting for Eckelberger, Skilton, Bernard,” SPP Board of Directors/MC Briefs: Oct. 29, 2019.) 

She has served as the Olympic Medical Center’s at-large representative to the PUD commission since July 2023.