By Tom Kleckner
FERC on Friday approved the dissolution of the SPP Regional Entity (RE) and the transfer of its members to the Midwest Reliability Organization and SERC Reliability Corp., ending a reliability oversight role that had been a source of concern at the commission and NERC (RR18-3).
The commission found that a proposal submitted by NERC, MRO and SERC in March “reflects the transfers of registered entities will ‘promote effective and administration of bulk power system reliability’” in accordance with the Federal Power Act.
The order terminates the amended and revised delegation agreement between NERC and SPP, effective Aug. 31, and revises the delegated agreements among NERC, MRO and SERC to reflect their new geographic footprints. The transfer is effective July 1.
FERC said it was “satisfied” that the petitioners and SPP “have considered and established mechanisms to mitigate against the risk of material gaps in oversight of compliance and enforcement activities due to the transfer of registered entities.”
Most of the RE’s 122 registered entities have been reassigned to the MRO, with the remainder joining SERC. NERC will assume the compliance monitoring and enforcement of the SPP RTO for two years following the delegated agreement’s termination date, after which it will determine a successor.
SPP was appointed by NERC as an RE in 2007. The RTO said last July it had reached an agreement to dissolve the RE, citing a mismatch between the RE’s footprint and SPP’s. FERC and NERC had both expressed concerns that SPP failed to ensure the RE’s independence from the RTO.
NERC approved the dissolution in February. (See NERC Board Approves Dissolving SPP Regional Entity.)
NERC, MRO and SERC filed the joint petition with FERC in March.
The RE said it will address transitional and wind-down costs using its approved 2018 statutory assessment funding. Any funds left over will be transferred to MRO and SERC, allocated according to the transferred load-serving entities’ relative net energy for load.
