MISO wants to increase the number of generation projects it may study under its interconnection queue express lane from 10 to 15 per quarter.
The grid operator in late September filed with FERC to increase the 10-project quarterly limit and said it wants the change to become effective Nov. 26, days before it kicks off acceptance of a second cycle of expedited generation requests (ER25-3543).
MISO told the commission the change would allow it to study more interconnection requests in fewer cycles and would enable approved generation projects to more quickly secure generator interconnection agreements. That, in turn, would help address “near-term resource adequacy needs earlier while having a negligible impact on MISO’s workload.”
MISO still plans to study 68 generation projects but tackle them in fewer cycles and potentially wind down the process earlier than its originally planned Aug. 31, 2027, retirement date.
The RTO said with the first study “well underway,” it now has “a far better understanding of how [the expedited process] will work in process and has better visibility into what the next several study cycles would look like.”
“As of today, MISO has already completed most of the initial analysis for the first 10 … projects, which demonstrates that MISO has the capacity to expand the discrete number of projects studied in each cycle,” MISO said.
FERC in July approved MISO’s interconnection fast lane (ER25-2454). Since then, MISO has designated a 10-project, 5.3-GW first cycle for study among the 26.5 GW of applicants. In total, 47 projects lined up for the chance at an expedited queue study process. (See MISO Selects 10 Gen Proposals at 5.3 GW in 1st Expedited Queue Class and 26.5 GW of Mostly Gas Gen Compete for MISO’s Sped-up Grid Treatment.)
WPPI Energy’s Steve Leovy said he’s concerned MISO filed for the change abruptly without holding any stakeholder discussions. “Did it occur to MISO that it might be useful to inform stakeholders of the planned decision to make a filing?” Leovy asked at an Oct. 8 meeting of the RTO’s Planning Advisory Committee.
Director of Resource Utilization Andy Witmeier said the RTO is aware that it communicated the existence of the filing to stakeholders only as it submitted it to FERC. Witmeier said MISO was under pressure to file in time to allow for FERC’s 60-day response time so the new limit could take effect by the Dec. 1 deadline for the second intake of projects. He said no stakeholder meetings were scheduled during that time.
