By Tom Kleckner

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A battle over a seat on SPP’s Members Committee last week exposed a divide between the RTO’s traditional utilities and the renewable energy companies fueling the growth of generation.

Dogwood Energy’s Rob Janssen retained the independent power producer/marketer’s seat on the committee, one he’s held for 12 years, following a nomination from the floor and a membership vote during SPP’s Oct. 29 annual meeting of members and the Board of Directors. The result overturned the Corporate Governance Committee’s recommendation that Enel Green Power North America’s Betsy Beck fill the seat.

David Mindham, EDP Renewables’ regulatory market affairs manager, told RTO Insider that several members of the IPP sector “find it troubling” that they don’t get to choose their representatives and said the wind industry is “underrepresented” on SPP committees.

“Members who may have different agendas select who represents our industry,” Mindham said.

Candidates are nominated for SPP committees by their organizations or through third parties. The CGC then considers their nominations and makes its recommendations to the broader membership.

The 21-member committee discusses issues with the board and casts nonbinding votes meant to inform the independent directors.

Janssen said in an email Thursday that he looks forward continuing work with renewable generation and storage segment representatives of the IPP sector “to broaden opportunities for increased representation on SPP working groups and board-level committees.”

“I believe that more diversity in representation in SPP’s stakeholder process leads to better outcomes for all SPP members,” Janssen said.

SPP did not divulge the final vote total, a practice it maintains for all board votes. After announcing the result, Chair Larry Altenbaumer turned to Beck and said, “I hope you will continue to be engaged with us and involved.”

Golden Spread Electric Cooperative’s Mike Wise, a member of the CGC, told members that the committee “really struggled” in choosing a candidate for the IPP seat’s three-year term.

“The recommendation out of the committee took us a long time,” he said. “We want people to know that the Corporate Governance Committee really did struggle and spend time on all the issues brought up today about these two individuals.”

Nebraska Public Power District’s Tom Kent nominated Janssen from the floor, citing his “long track record of reasonable and fair representation of both the IPP/marketers sector and the SPP membership as a whole.”

Kent and Janssen served as chair and vice chair, respectively, on the Holistic Integrated Tariff Team, which recently wrapped up a year of work. (See SPP Board Approves HITT’s Recommendations.)

“I’ve gotten to know Rob very well over the last year and a half, watching him work on the HITT team with all the HITT members, asking in-depth, challenging questions to help move the organization forward,” Kent said. “For a person with the type of expertise that Rob has … having that expertise on the Members Committee is very important to me.”

Janssen is president of Dogwood Energy, which owns a 650-MW combined cycle generating facility near Kansas City, Mo. He’s also is a senior vice president with Kelson Energy, an asset management company that has owned or operated more than 7,700 MW of generation businesses at more than a dozen sites in North America.

The Kansas Municipal Energy Agency, which had six votes through its affiliate members, seconded Janssen’s nomination. Calpine and Kansas Electric Power also filed letters of support.

No letters of support for Beck, Enel’s director of organized markets, were included in the board’s background materials. Mindham said the letter he filed backing Beck’s nomination missed the submission deadline.

Walmart, Google Energy and Evergy’s Denise Buffington spoke in support of Beck. Kent and the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority’s David Osburn offered statements backing Janssen.

“I think wind needs to be part of the strategic vision and part of the company moving forward,” Buffington said. “Allocating costs in the [generator interconnection] queue, stopping load from paying for all of these wind assets … that’s why I think wind needs to be a part of this group.”

‘A Lot of Expertise’

Beck has more than 10 years of experience in the electric sector and has spent time as an energy adviser with the U.S. Senate, at FERC and with the American Wind Energy Association. While with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, she advised members and drafted legislation with a focus on energy trading derivatives regulation, the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act and public power.

“The IPP sector is made up of diverse stakeholders with interests in project operations, development and power marketing. It is vital that the IPP sector’s representation on the Members Committee accurately reflects those broad interests,” Mindham said in his letter.

He pointed out that renewable energy companies have one seat among the three “high-level” committees that report to the board — the MC, CGC and Strategic Planning Committee — while Dogwood Energy sits on all three.

“It is essential that these committees represent all stakeholder interests and that no single company is over-represented. This diversity maintains the integrity of the stakeholder process,” Mindham said. “The failure to select Betsy for the Members Committee is disappointing. She would have brought needed diversity and a wealth of industry knowledge to the SPP governance process.”

Beck declined to comment following the vote but advocated for herself before the members, as did Janssen. Saying she sees FERC as taking a stronger role in directing SPP’s policies, Beck said her diverse background would be helpful to the members.

“Honestly, I think our industry is a little behind the ball in engaging with SPP,” she told members. Noting Enel’s 4 GW of wind resources in SPP’s footprint, which delivered about 5% of the RTO’s energy last year, Beck said, “I bring lot of expertise with me as far as interconnection and trading issues. I think our company really represents the diversity of interests in our sector.”

“Over the years, I’ve developed a significant knowledge of SPP, the way the organization operates and where it’s going in the future,” Janssen said. “I’ve always tried to look out for all the interests of the members in our discussion, knowing we’ll get a better product and a better result for the power pool if we come together.”

Osburn, while supporting Janssen, suggested adding seats to the Members Committee in recognition of wind energy’s contributions to SPP and the growing importance of solar and energy storage. Wind (47.5 GW), solar (29.4 GW) and battery (6.8 GW) account for all but 331 MW of resources in SPP’s generation queue.

“You’re going to have a new group of participants with solar coming on board,” Osburn said.

A FERC-mandated two-thirds reduction of SPP’s exit fee to $100,000 will certainly make membership more acceptable to smaller renewable energy companies. (See SPP Board of Directors/MC Briefs: July 30, 2019.)

Members also approved the following nominations for three-year terms to the Members Committee: Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s Tom Christensen and Sunflower Electric Power’s Stuart Lowry to the cooperative segment; NorthWestern Energy’s Bleau LaFave and Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s Peggy Simmons to the investor-owned utility segment; City Utilities of Springfield’s (Mo.) Chris Jones to the municipal segment; and ITC Great Plains’ Brett Leopold to the independent transmission company segment.

Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association’s Joel Bladow (cooperative) and Google Energy’s Jeff Riles (large retail customer segment) were elected to fill vacancies that expire in December 2020.