In light of stressed-out supply chains and a bogged-down study process, MISO has agreed to re-evaluate its rules around commercial operation dates in its interconnection queue.
Stakeholders and staff plan to discuss extending the grace periods around commercial operation dates at upcoming meetings of the Interconnection Process Working Group (IPWG).
MISO policy requires its interconnection customers’ generator interconnection agreements (GIAs) contain a commercial operation date that’s within three years of the date originally requested in their queue applications. MISO additionally allows an up to three-year extension of the commercial operation date in the initial GIA. When customers can’t meet either, MISO can terminate the GIA and generator developers lose their place in line unless they can secure a waiver of their commercial operation dates from FERC.
Last week, EDP Renewables’ David Mindham said supply chain troubles and delays in MISO’s studies of generation projects mean that projects regularly take longer than the allotted six years from originally planned commercial operations and often require FERC waivers, which create uncertainty.
Mindham raised the issue at the Aug. 30 meeting of the Planning Advisory Committee, which ultimately assigned the issue to the IPWG for consideration.
Mindham said MISO should consider extending its COD deadlines in its Tariff so they’re feasible. He said transmission owners often don’t have network upgrades ready until well into the second extension. Mindham said current wait times for equipment like breakers can last three and a half years and “eat away at the three-year grace period.”
“There are dozens of these projects that will require FERC waivers. This problem doesn’t seem to be going away. If anything, it seems to be getting worse on the transmission owners’ end, and it’s going to take several years for that to get caught up,” he said. “… The commercial operation date should have some meaning. It should be a date that developers can reasonably meet.”
Multiple MISO interconnection customers have sought commercial operation date waivers with FERC since the pandemic began and strained supply chains. Mindham said an extension could cut down on the need for developers to seek future waivers.
