FERC on Tuesday accepted SPP tariff revisions that clarify its interconnection (IC) customers’ financial security refunds, effective April 1, 2023, and subject to a compliance filing within 30 days of the order (ER23-841).
The commission found SPP demonstrated that the revisions are just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential and would comply with FERC’s rulemakings concerning the pro forma generator interconnection procedures (GIPs) and agreements.
Under the revisions, SPP will determine whether an interconnection customer withdrawing its request after the first two decision points of the RTO’s three-phase GI study process is subject to forfeiting its financial security. SPP will evaluate the withdrawal’s effect on upgrade costs for “equally- or lower-queued” IC requests within the “actively studied clusters.”
FERC said the revisions “therefore clarify which interconnection requests are evaluated in SPP’s impact analysis.” It said the revisions improve certainty for IC customers, meeting the purposes of its pro forma GI procedures and agreements rulemaking.
In addition, SPP proposes revisions to GIP section 8.14(e) to apply the financial security forfeiture exemptions in GIP section 8.14(d) to interconnection requests that are subject to any restudies after Decision Point 2 that are performed in accordance with GIP sections 8.8 and 8.13.
The proposed revisions to GIP section 8.14(e) also provide that if an interconnection request is restudied and it meets the forfeiture exceptions under GIP section 8.14(d), the IC customers will have 15 business days after the restudy results are posted to decide whether to withdraw requests. The commission said the 15-day deadline “should help streamline the study process” by encouraging IC customers to make timely decisions about whether they intend to proceed to the next study stage after a restudy.
“We find that the proposed revisions … strike a reasonable balance between giving an interconnection customer an opportunity to withdraw from the queue without forfeiture of the [security] payments if allocated upgrade costs significantly increase after a restudy and allowing SPP to administer its queue in an efficient and timely manner,” FERC said.
Several renewable energy developers protested SPP’s proposal when it was filed in January, saying it reduces an IC customer’s ability to have its posted financial security refunded when withdrawing due to a substantial increase in allocated upgrade costs. They argued that the proposed revisions unreasonably deny IC customers the opportunity to claim a forfeiture exemption if the grid operator revises its second phase’s results without a restudy.
The commission approved SPP’s three-phase IC study process in 2019. (See FERC OKs New SPP Interconnection Process.)
