By Amanda Durish Cook

MISO last week presented a plan to address FERC’s order in an ongoing dispute over its seam with PJM, even as the RTOs and other parties sought rehearing on the ruling.

The RTOs have until June 20 to submit a compliance filing in response to an April 21 order in which the commission partially denied and granted a 2013 complaint by Northern Indiana Public Service Co. regarding the two RTOs’ interregional planning (EL 13-88). (See FERC Orders Changes to MISO-PJM Interregional Planning.)

At a Joint and Common Market meeting last week, MISO said the RTOs will work together to create “step-by-step deadlines” for a coordinated system plan in their joint operating agreement (JOA) by the filing deadline. By mid-August, the RTOs will align their respective annual transmission project packages — MISO’s Transmission Expansion Plan and PJM’s Regional Transmission Expansion Plan.

As ordered by FERC, MISO will also:

• Lower its interregional project voltage threshold to 100 kV;
• Eliminate the $5 million cost threshold for interregional projects;
• Remove its interregional cost-benefit analysis; and
• Work with PJM to incorporate interconnection coordination procedures from their respective business practice manuals into the JOA.

“With the order, FERC required a lot of MISO,” Planning Advisory Committee Chair Bob McKee said during last week’s Steering Committee meeting.

PJM’s Chuck Liebold said the RTOs continue to work together on a targeted market efficiency project study that would identify quick, low-cost upgrades to alleviate congestion, while simultaneously adding JOA language that incorporates the study process.

The RTOs and SPP are also seeking alternatives to the April 1, 2004, “freeze date” for determining firm rights on flowgates based on flows before they instituted their current markets. The RTOs plan to develop a solution and file Tariff revisions by the fourth quarter, with implementation expected by next June.

MISO is also seeking stakeholder input on how to implement a new joint model that uses the same assumptions and criteria in the regional processes for both RTOs.

“The rest of the order didn’t order stakeholder involvement, but we certainly want some input,” said Eric Thoms, MISO’s manager of planning coordination.

Rehearing Requests

Last week, NIPSCO, MISO, PJM and others filed requests for rehearing of FERC’s order.

NIPSCO asked the commission to reverse its decision disallowing use of market-to-market payments as an alternative justification for interregional projects. It also wants FERC to impose a timeline on market efficiency project analyses.

“NIPSCO appreciates the commission’s attention to seams issues to date, but respectfully requests that the commission ‘hold the RTOs’ feet to the fire’ regarding the significant compliance efforts that remain,” the company wrote in its request.

The Organization of MISO States argued that the new 100-kV threshold for interregional economic transmission projects is unjust and unreasonable. The group contends there is no “substantial” evidence that projects above 100 kV but below 345 kV can provide benefits broad enough to justify a 20% load ratio cost allocation across MISO’s footprint.

“Any such change would require an appropriate process that includes substantial stakeholder input and engineering studies to support any changes,” OMS said.

MISO Transmission Owners asked FERC to revisit its decision to lower the voltage threshold and eliminate the $5 million cost threshold for interregional economic transmission projects. The TOs say that in ordering the changes, the commission “inappropriately relies on the results of MISO and PJM’s quick hit analysis, which utilizes different planning criteria and inputs than MISO and PJM utilize for identifying and evaluating interregional market efficiency projects.”

MISO asked FERC to reconsider a decision to eliminate the interregional benefits-to-costs analysis — also known as the joint metric — claiming the commission provided no explanation for the move. The RTO also contends that the joint metric “is not a hurdle and is needed to harmonize regional benefits calculations and prevent gaming.”

PJM asked the commission to clarify whether it meant for the RTOs to eliminate the current 1.25-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio on interregional projects. Determining a cost split using separate regional metrics “will result in significantly different benefit values for the same project,” the RTO said.