By Tom Kleckner
FERC on Thursday accepted the recommendations of SPP’s Market Monitoring Unit to eliminate the Woodward frequently constrained area (FCA) in Northwest Oklahoma and replace the Texas Panhandle FCA with a smaller one for the Lubbock area. The changes are effective April 1 (ER18-736).
FCAs are areas with high levels of congestion that are also subject to one or more pivotal suppliers.
The Monitor’s December 2017 FCA report recommended removing the two historically congested areas that appeared on the 2016 report, while designating one new FCA. The MMU annually reviews and designates SPP’s congested areas.
The MMU recommended removing the Woodward FCA — added in January 2016 because of the growth in wind resources in western SPP — because of a decrease in congestion following the Woodward phase shifting transformer upgrade in May 2017.
It said the Texas Panhandle FCA should be removed because it no longer met the threshold of binding for at least 500 hours with a $25/MWh impact during a given 12-month period.
However, the Monitor suggested the Lubbock, Texas, area be added as SPP’s lone FCA for this year. The area first appeared as an FCA candidate in the 2015 study and has seen increased congestion since, indicating a shift in congestion south of the Texas Panhandle, the MMU said.
Congestion in this area was part of the southern section of the Texas Panhandle FCA but upgrades north of the Lubbock area and the Woodward-Border-Tuco 345-kV line shifted the congestion to the southwestern edge of the RTO’s grid.
“The Texas Panhandle still sees congestion, but the addition of the Lubbock area better represents where the concern of exercise of market power exists,” the MMU said. The Lubbock area saw 686 hours of congestion in 2017.
FERC ruled that the Monitor’s suggestion that it simply post the FCA list on SPP’s website without the Board of Directors’ approval was outside the proceeding’s scope. The MMU said that following the Tariff requirement for board approval can take six months, a lag that can lead to outdated FCA lists and that “does not allow SPP or the Market Monitor to efficiently and appropriately address market power concerns.”
The commission urged the RTO and its stakeholders to consider the MMU’s suggested improvements to the FCA re-evaluation and designation process through the stakeholder process.
