An SPP committee charged with coordinating the RTO’s policy development and recommendations to integrate electric storage resources (ESRs) took its first steps Tuesday with a conference call.
During the call, Chair Holly Carias, of NextEra Energy Resources, reminded the Electric Storage Resource Steering Committee’s (ESRSC) members that they are not to decide policies, but to “ensure the appropriate working groups are assigned the right recommendations.” She said the committee would be responsible for providing guidance, resolving conflicts and monitoring the working groups’ progress.
The committee discussed 17 of the 32 issues in front of it — divided into technical, cost allocation and “other” — before running out of time. The ESRSC will regroup March 13 to finish the task.
The committee’s creation sprang out of a Strategic Planning Committee discussion in January and was spurred on by SPP Planning Approach to Battery Storage.)
It is composed of the chairs of the Markets and Operations Policy Committee (Carias) and several working groups, including Economic Studies (ITC Holdings’ Alan Myers), Market (American Electric Power’s Richard Ross), Operating Reliability (Evergy’s Allen Klassen), Regional Tariff (Nebraska Public Power District’s Robert Pick), Supply Adequacy (Golden Spread Electric Cooperative’s Natasha Henderson) and Transmission (Midwest Energy’s Nathan McNeil).
The Nebraska Power Review Board’s John Krajewski, chair of the Cost Allocation Working Group, will serve on the ESRSC as a liaison member for the Regional State Committee.
The ESRSC reports to the MOPC but will also report progress to the SPC. The committee has set a tentative timeline of January 2021.
Wanted: Industry Experts to Review Order 1000 Projects
SPP is accepting applications through March 15 for the latest pool of industry experts that might be chosen to serve on an independent panel reviewing the RTO’s competitive transmission construction proposals in 2020.
The Oversight Committee will recommend the pool members, with the Board of Directors voting on their approval later this year.
SPP creates this pool of individuals each year in response to FERC Order 1000. The panel of industry experts will review, rank and score proposals for competitive transmission projects approved for construction.
SPP’s recently approved Transmission Expansion Plan includes two 345-kV projects that will be competitively bid: a $77 million, 60-mile line near Tulsa, Okla.; and a $152 million, 105-mile line and terminal equipment in Kansas and Missouri.
A similar panel in 2016 approved SPP’s only competitive project so far. However, that project was later canceled because of a drop in load projections. (See SPP Cancels First Competitive Tx Project, Citing Falling Demand Projections.)
— Tom Kleckner
