FERC last week accepted SPP’s proposed Tariff revision requiring the installation of phasor measurement units (PMUs) at new generator interconnections (ER19-2845).
The commission determined the PMUs will “provide data to SPP that it can use to improve system reliability and system model validation, and that may assist with compliance with current or future NERC requirements.”
“We expect that PMUs will also enhance SPP’s phase angle monitoring, voltage stability assessments, wide-area situational awareness and post-grid event analysis,” the commission wrote.
FERC in August 2018 rejected an early version of the proposal over cost concerns raised by renewable energy developers. It directed SPP to clarify how transmission owners would treat PMU installation costs to avoid including them in transmission rates. Otherwise, FERC said, nonaffiliate customers could end up subsidizing installations for generators belonging to TOs or their affiliated interconnection customers. (See “Commission Rejects PMU Proposal over Cost Concerns,” 3rd Time’s a Charm for SPP Resource Adequacy Proposal.)
SPP’s revised filing retains a requirement that PMUs be installed for all resources 50 MW and above and requires that PMU equipment be installed by the TO on its side of the system before a resource’s initial synchronization date. The revision also makes clear that the PMU equipment will become part of the TO’s interconnection facilities and be funded by the interconnection customer.
The commission rejected an argument by EDP Renewables North America and RWE Renewables Americas that PMUs should be considered network upgrades and that their ongoing communications and operations and maintenance costs should be borne by transmission customers. It said SPP’s designation of PMUs as being TO interconnection facilities was reasonable “because the PMUs are equipment owned, controlled or operated by the transmission owner between the point of change of ownership to the point of interconnection.”
The change is effective Nov. 20, 2019.
Revamped Rate Design Approved
The commission also issued a letter order Feb. 6 accepting SPP’s revisions to Schedule 1A of its Tariff that will replace a broad rate schedule with four targeted ones, effective Jan. 1, 2021 (ER20-418).
Under the new rate design, four schedules will replace Schedule 1A’s previous rate with the hope of better aligning beneficiaries with payers and including energy transactions.
Planning, scheduling and dispatch costs will be paid by transmission customers; financial administration costs by their users; market-clearing costs by virtual and real-time market participants; and markets facilitation by real-time market participants. Market costs will be recovered through energy charges and planning costs through demand.
A Schedule 1A Task Force provided much of the design work, which was approved by SPP’s Board of Directors and the Markets and Operations Policy Committee in January 2019. (See “Board Approves Modernized Cost-recovery Structure,” SPP Board of Directors/Members Committee Briefs: Jan. 29, 2019.)
— Tom Kleckner
