By Rory D. Sweeney
MISO and PJM officials will entertain stakeholder proposals for interregional reliability projects even though none of the 19 reliability upgrades currently planned near the RTOs’ seam offers opportunities for collaboration, RTO officials said last week.
The 10 projects in PJM’s Regional Transmission Expansion Plan include four in American Electric Power’s zone, one in East Kentucky Power Cooperative, three in Duke Energy Ohio/Kentucky, one in Rochelle Municipal Power’s zone in north-center Illinois and one that crosses AEP’s and DEOK’s zones on the border of Ohio and Indiana.
The nine projects in MISO’s 2017 MISO Transmission Expansion Plan include two in ITC Transmission’s zone, three in ITC subsidiary Michigan Electric Transmission Co.’s zone, one in Consumers Energy, one in American Transmission Co. and two in MidAmerican Energy.
Interregional reliability projects are analyzed on the basis of avoided costs. Comparisons of the MISO and PJM plans “have not identified any high potential areas for an interregional reliability project,” the RTOs said at the March 24 Interregional Planning Stakeholder Advisory Committee meeting.
PJM is expected to open a proposal window for interregional projects around May. MISO will accept proposals at any time.
Market Efficiency Projects
Meanwhile, the RTOs are evaluating eight market efficiency project proposals submitted in the window that closed Feb. 28. The grid operators received proposals for three upgrades and five greenfield projects from six respondents. The projects ranged in cost from $1 million to $198 million. (See “2017 MEP Identification Underway,” FERC Signals Bulk of NIPSCO Order Work Complete.)
PJM is currently updating its PROMOD model for 2017 and plans to begin calculations around May 1. Stakeholders who have critical energy infrastructure information (CEII) clearance and been approved to receive the model should expect access somewhere around the end of April or the beginning of May, PJM’s Chuck Liebold said.
The project benefits will be compared during the summer to determine interregional cost allocation, and the best projects will be identified in the fall. Recommendations to the respective boards will be made in November or December.
FERC Filings
On Dec. 30, the RTOs filed joint operating agreement changes defining the study process, benefits and interregional cost allocation for targeted market efficiency projects (TMEPs) (ER17-718).
Related tariff filings, defining the new TMEP project type and how costs of such projects would be allocated regionally, are due from each of the RTOs by April 29.
PJM’s Transmission Owners Agreement-Administrative Committee (TOA-AC) closed a 30-day comment window on March 23.
MISO is considering its regional cost allocation rules for such projects in the Regional Expansion Criteria and Benefits Working Group. Stakeholders discussed a proposal based on congestion contribution at the February and March working group meetings. Another working group meeting is tentatively set for April 7 to continue discussions.
The RTOs are considering as many as five TMEPs. (See MISO-PJM TMEP Projects Drop to Five.)