MISO and SPP said last week they will likely establish a smaller interregional project type similar to MISO’s and PJM’s Targeted Market Efficiency Project (TMEP).

If approved, a TMEP — small, $20 million and under upgrades — could become the grid operators’ first interregional transmission project.

MISO’s Ben Stearney said the upgrades will be designed to handle persistent congestion on the RTOs’ SPP seam.

“I think the MISO-PJM process provides a pretty good framework,” he told stakeholders during Friday’s Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee (IPSAC).

Stearney said the projects will use a “straightforward” benefit analysis that relies on historical market-to-market congestion. He said staffs must line up market data to identify beneficial projects.

He predicted it would take four to six months for MISO and SPP to draft a TMEP process under their joint operating agreement (JOA) and separately develop regional cost-allocation methods to divide costs among respective members.

Advanced Power Alliance’s Steve Gaw asked whether staffs could accelerate enshrining the TMEPs’ process in their JOA. “My read is you’ve got a lot of support for this,” Gaw said.

Stearney said the RTOs want to collect formal stakeholder feedback on the new study type before proceeding. “I really want to kick off this study process in earnest in 2022,” he said.

The RTOs’ state regulators have already asked the grid operators to commit to a TMEP-type category. (See 4th Time No Charm for MISO-SPP Interregional Study.)

They will hold another IPSAC in early 2022 to further discuss TMEPs and CSPs.