FERC approved MISO’s proposal to increase the number of generation projects it may study under its expedited interconnection queue lane from 10 to 15 per quarter.
The commission in a Nov. 25 order found that the increased quarterly project limit appears to be fair and aligns with its previous orders to speed up interconnection timelines reliably and transparently (ER25-3543).
FERC said it agreed with MISO that increasing project counts would help projects reach generation interconnection agreements faster and meet resource adequacy needs quicker. It said faster processing wouldn’t “adversely affect” MISO’s normal generator interconnection queue. (See MISO Moves to Increase Quarterly Project Count in Queue Express Lane.)
The change becomes effective Nov. 26, days before MISO kicks off acceptance of a second cycle of expedited generation requests.
The grid operator in late September filed with FERC to raise the quarterly rate, saying it could handle 15 project slots per quarter and potentially could close the temporary queue process earlier than the originally planned Aug. 31, 2027, retirement date.
FERC endorsed MISO’s interconnection fast lane in late July (ER25-2454). Since then, MISO has designated a 5.3-GW first cycle for study among a 26.5-GW pool of applicants. (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.)
MISO has to date received 49 project applications for its expedited queue, with most of the megawatts coming from gas-fired generators.
Kyle Trotter told stakeholders the RTO discovered it could process the generation projects faster than it previously anticipated.
“We didn’t see a reason not to try to go faster and expedite them even more. It doesn’t go deeper than that,” Trotter said at an October Interconnection Process Working Group meeting.
MISO Vice President of System Planning Aubrey Johnson told the Entergy Regional State Committee on Nov. 11 that the RTO believes the fast lane has met its objectives to accelerate resource additions.
However, environmental groups have challenged MISO’s and SPP’s queue fast tracks at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing the processes are unduly preferential, allowing primarily fossil fuel generation to skip queue lines while ratepayers fund the grid upgrades needed to accommodate them. (See Enviros Challenge MISO, SPP Queue Express Lanes.)
Altogether, MISO’s temporary process would accommodate 68 projects, with 10 reserved for submissions form independent power producers and eight from entities serving its retail choice load in downstate Illinois and a percentage of Michigan.
