FERC last week ordered Section 206 proceedings in MISO and SPP, questioning the RTOs’ failure to require nonpublic transmission owners to provide refunds in the manner it requires of public utility owners.
The commission expressed “concern that the refund commitments provided by the nonpublic utility transmission owners thus far do not apply to the full range of situations in which they may receive revenues associated with service provided due to their status as transmission-owning RTO members based on RTO rates, terms or conditions that are found to be unjust and unreasonable,” it said in the MISO order, which resulted from a complaint brought against the RTO by a group of transmission owners (EL15-45, EL16-99).
The commission raised similar concerns in opening the 206 proceeding for SPP, saying the lack of full refund provisions for non-public utilities could result in cost shifts, meaning “SPP’s resulting jurisdictional rates may not be just and reasonable” (EL16-91).
Although the commission cannot directly order refunds from nonpublic utility transmission owners that have joined RTOs, FERC said SPP and MISO could compel such refunds indirectly. It suggested the RTOs revise their Tariffs to require non-jurisdictional TOs to promise to honor refunds ordered in FPA Section 205 and 206 proceedings. Such refunds would include those correcting errors in the application of their formula rates and costs later found to be unjust and unreasonable.
“If a nonpublic utility transmission owner chooses not to make such a refund commitment, then SPP would remove its transmission revenue requirement(s) from the SPP Tariff as of a prospective date to be determined by the commission,” FERC said.
In the MISO ruling, FERC also denied the MISO Transmission Owners’ request for rehearing regarding whether a public utility’s ROE may be found unjust and unreasonable even if it falls within the “zone of reasonableness.” FERC set that zone at 7.03 to 11.74% in a June 2014 ruling involving New England TOs.
The commission also granted in part and denied in part rehearing requests in a separate docket involving a dispute over base ROEs. (See MISO TOs Seek Base ROE of 11.39%.) The commission denied a request for rehearing from the MISO TOs and Xcel Energy regarding the effective refund date FERC had set. It did grant in part Xcel’s request for rehearing with respect to refunds for nonpublic utility transmission owners.
In EL14-12-001, FERC agreed to clarify its Oct. 16, 2014, order that set hearing and settlement judge procedures along with a refund effective date related to the base ROE for MISO transmission owners. (See ROE Talks Between MISO Industrials and TOs Collapse.)
WASHINGTON — FERC directed NERC on Thursday to develop a “forward-looking, objective-based” critical infrastructure protection (CIP) reliability standard for supply chain management, one that would place the onus on utilities to develop their own plans for protecting the production and distribution of industrial control system hardware and software (RM15-14-002).
Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur dissented in the 3-1 decision.
The commission’s order requires each affected entity’s plan to address four objectives: software integrity and authenticity; vendor remote access; information system planning; and vendor risk management and procurement controls.
FERC emphasized the flexibility it provided NERC in developing the standard. “There is no requirement for any specific controls, nor does FERC require any ‘one-size-fits-all’ requirements,” it said. “The new or modified reliability standard should instead require responsible entities to develop a plan to meet the four objectives while providing flexibility to responsible entities as to how to meet those objectives.”
“The draft final rule directs ‘what’ gap NERC should address,” the Office of the General Counsel’s Kevin Ryan told the commission at its open meeting, “not ‘how’ NERC addresses that gap.”
“I’m happy to support today’s order because I do think it reaches the appropriate balance of pairing together an appropriate sense of urgency on the issue with a prudent flexibility that’s going to be needed by NERC to develop the rule,” Commissioner Tony Clark said.
This is only the third time that FERC has directed NERC to develop a reliability standard; usually, NERC proposes new or revised standards, and FERC issues Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPRs) to adopt them. The commission previously ordered NERC to develop standards on geomagnetic disturbances and physical security.
Clark drew a comparison to the physical security standard in his support for the order. “With the physical security standard, we weren’t telling NERC to tell fence builders how to build their fences, which would be beyond our authority, but rather to come up with a standard so that utilities can incorporate those best practices to ensure physical security of the grid.”
LaFleur Issues Lengthy Dissent
It was this flexibility that led Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur to vote against the order. “I recognize that today’s order on the face appears to afford a great deal of flexibility, but I believe that flexibility is in fact a lack of guidance on the issue we’re addressing,” she said at the open meeting.
LaFleur argued that the rule should have been issued as a NOPR instead to allow more input from stakeholders.
FERC first issued a NOPR addressing cybersecurity, including supply chain management, almost exactly a year ago. While the commission approved seven NERC-proposed standards in the NOPR in January, it held off on addressing the supply chain, holding a technical conference later that month. (See FERC Postpones Action on Supply Chain Protections.)
FERC on Thursday also denied a request for rehearing of its approval of the seven standards (RM15-14-001).
Commissioner Colette Honorable noted that FERC received comments from 34 parties on the NOPR and 24 additional post-technical conference comments. “I think our work in this particular effort demonstrates that we did heed the concerns raised by industry, government, vendors, folks in academia and others,” she said.
“It is worth noting,” LaFleur wrote in a four-page dissent, “that the four objectives that will define the scope and content of the standard were not identified in the supply chain NOPR. Therefore, even though the final rule reflects feedback received on the supply chain NOPR, and is not obviously inconsistent with the supply chain NOPR, no party has yet had an opportunity to comment on those objectives or consider how they could be translated into an effective and enforceable standard.”
And in a rare — albeit low-key and brief — debate at an open meeting, LaFleur rebutted Clark’s comparison of the new rule to the physical security standard. Clark said the latter standard had a quicker turnaround than FERC had required, while there has been “significantly more comment … and process leading up to this particular order.”
“Although the timeline was short, I thought that was actually an example of very focused outreach in advance,” LaFleur said. “We actually ordered the Office of Electric Reliability to work with NERC on the structure of the standard before we issued the directive and [to] agree in advance on a timeline. And as a result, I think we issued — even though we didn’t say ‘build a fence’ — a pretty focused standard, and they complied pretty quickly.
“But of course reasonable minds can differ.”
The rule will take effect 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register. NERC will then have a year to submit the standard.
Further Cybersecurity Measures
FERC also issued a Notice of Inquiry on Thursday seeking comment on potentially revising CIP standards to address separating the Internet and industrial control systems in transmission control centers (RM16-18).
The notice is in response to last year’s cyberattack in Ukraine, in which hackers, likely from the Russian government, infected three Ukrainian utilities with the BlackEnergy virus. Workers at the utilities downloaded seemingly innocent Microsoft Office files that had been emailed to them and enabled macros that allowed the hackers to gain control of the companies’ cyber systems, eventually knocking out power to 225,000 customers in the country. (See How a ‘Phantom Mouse’ and Weaponized Excel Files Brought Down Ukraine’s Grid.)
In its report on the incident, the Department of Homeland Security recommended, among other measures, isolating industrial control systems from the Internet and other unsecured networks at control centers. FERC seeks comment on any potential impacts on the grid from doing this.
CAISO has released a revised set of principles for governing a Western RTO in a bid to convince skeptics that an expanded ISO will be amenable to the entire region. The new document won initial praise, although doubts remain.
The ISO’s governance changes seek to address the concerns of industry participants in the broader West who contend that the original proposal favored California interests and didn’t sufficiently protect individual states’ authority over electricity-related matters. (See CAISO Governance Plan Fails to Dispel Western Concerns.)
“I will say that the revised proposal appears to be a step towards us rather than a step away,” said Bryce Freeman, administrator of the Wyoming Office of Consumer Advocate, noting that he hadn’t yet studied the proposal in depth.
“The question is, is it enough to keep the [PacifiCorp] states engaged?” said Freeman, who criticized the original proposal as being “California-centric.”
State Approvals Needed
That engagement will be essential for CAISO’s expansion into areas of the West now served by PacifiCorp. A widely accepted governance structure is key to the Portland-based utility gaining regulators’ approval to join the ISO in 2019. Regulators from five states outside California — Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming — must sign off on membership.
“We think the revised proposal marks a positive step in the right direction and that the changes appropriately reflect input from stakeholders, including on the key issue of striking the right balance between the existing authority of the ISO’s board and California and the other affected states,” PacifiCorp spokesman Bob Gravely said.
The updated proposal attempts to strike that balance in part by scrapping a controversial plan to appoint an “initial” RTO board of governors on which California-appointed members would have held a 5-4 majority. That board was slated to remain throughout a transition period and would have selected the “final” board based on a process developed by a transitional committee. Freeman previously referred to the initial board as the “mother of all California-centric concerns.”
Transitional Committee
CAISO is now proposing that the transitional committee develop a nominating and approval process to select a new nine-member board. The new board would be selected within 18 months of the effective date for the governance plan, which the transitional committee would develop and submit to the current board for approval.
New board members would fill seats created under the governance plan, as well as the open seats of sitting board members as their terms expire. Transitional committee members could extend the terms of sitting board members after determining that doing so would be beneficial to the new board based on “expertise and institutional knowledge.”
The revised proposal also fleshes out the composition of the transitional committee.
“The details are drawn from the Energy Imbalance Market transitional committee, which was successful in developing a governance structure that gave the entire region a voice in the market rules for the EIM,” CAISO said.
Each state in the expanded RTO footprint would be entitled to appoint a committee representative through its own process. In addition, stakeholders throughout the region would select representatives to the committee from nine sectors: investor-owned utilities; publicly owned utilities; independent power producers; large-scale renewable energy providers; distributed energy resource providers; generators and marketers; federal power marketing administrations (PMAs); public interest groups; and state-sanctioned ratepayer advocates.
In addition to developing the governance plan, the transitional committee would be responsible for dealing with other issues, such as whether to create a funding mechanism to facilitate participation in the RTO by consumer advocates.
CAISO’s modified proposal clarifies the role and powers of the Western States Committee (WSC), previously referred to as the body of state regulators. A representative from each RTO state would be appointed to the WSC, which also reserves one non-voting slot each for PMAs and publicly owned utilities. State committee members are not required to be regulators.
The WSC would “provide input on matters of collective state interest” and hold “primary authority” over certain RTO policy initiatives related to transmission cost allocation and resource adequacy.
“Primary authority means the committee will play the lead role for its defined areas of authority, and policy approval by the committee would be a prerequisite to any Section 205 filing with FERC in those areas,” CAISO said.
Still, the ISO would reserve the right to file with FERC without WSC approval “when reliability is imminently threatened.”
‘Genuine’ Effort
The proposed principles make an explicit concession to state sovereignty, promising that governing documents would include “binding provisions” to “protect and preserve state authority over matters regulated by the states themselves,” including procurement, resource planning, retail rates, and resource and transmission siting.
“The proposal appears to genuinely making an effort to preserve state sovereignty,” said Michele Beck, director of the Utah Office of Consumer Services. “But there’s a limit to what you can do in any proposal.”
Beck cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s April decision in Hughes v. Talen Energy — which struck down a Maryland program to incentivize in-state generation — as an example of how participation in an RTO can compromise a state’s authority. (See Supreme Court Rejects MD Subsidy for CPV Plant.)
“Ultimately, policymakers will have to weigh whether a certain amount of loss of sovereignty is worth the benefit,” Beck said.
While Beck was encouraged that CAISO set aside a position for consumer advocates on the transitional committee, she was also wary of a process modeled on the EIM, which she said left out the perspective of consumer groups.
Show Me the Benefits
She also thinks Western industry participants need to be looking beyond the governance issue.
“I want to remind people that governance is a big concern, but we still have to see benefits,” Beck said, pointing out that no studies have been performed to assess how consumers in individual states will be affected by PacifiCorp joining an RTO.
The utility says such a study is in the works.
“Having a final governance structure approved by the legislature that can be supported by other states, as well as completing a full cost analysis to determine net customer benefits, remain the two most important steps that will determine if we continue to move forward,” said PacifiCorp’s Gravely.
CAISO will take up discussion of the revised proposal during a public forum held in Sacramento on July 26. After taking a last round of comments, the ISO plans to send a final governance proposal to Gov. Jerry Brown, who is expected to present the plan to the state legislature in August. Lawmakers must approve any changes to the ISO’s governance structure.
SPP executives had “inappropriate” involvement in the oversight of its Market Monitoring Unit, FERC said in an audit report released Friday that called for changes (PA15-6).
The report said the internal MMU “should strengthen its independence and enhance its separation from” the RTO by barring non-MMU employees from its office and RTO management from its meetings with the Board of Directors’ Oversight Committee.
The audit report raised many of the concerns reported by RTO Insider in a series of articles earlier this year, citing SPP executives’ involvement in the MMU’s budget, performance reviews and salary decisions. The audit also said the MMU’s independence was hampered by the fact that until recently it shared legal counsel with the RTO.
Auditors criticized MMU Director Alan McQueen — though not by name — saying he took actions that “blurred the lines” between the MMU and RTO.
It also said the Oversight Committee should undertake a “closer review of the performance of the MMU” and its director. “In complying with Order No. 719, one of the important steps taken by the MMU to ensure independence was when it structured its accountability process so that it reports directly to the Oversight Committee,” the auditors noted.
But the report did not address SPP’s treatment of former monitors Catherine Mooney and John Hyatt, who say they were fired for raising independence concerns. Nor did it mention their allegations that McQueen pressured them to compromise their positions in order to minimize conflicts with SPP management and stakeholders and that Oversight Committee Chairman Joshua W. Martin III refused to meet with them when they attempted to raise concerns. (See SPP Squelching MMU Independence, Former Monitors Say.)
The auditors said most of their 16 recommendations were already being addressed by the Oversight Committee’s revised December 2015 position statement on the MMU’s independence, which made the committee responsible for all salary and bonus decisions for McQueen and other MMU employees and ensured that the MMU director could meet with the committee in executive sessions without RTO officials present.
The committee approved the statement, which had last been updated in 2012, nine days after Hyatt and Mooney were fired. Martin announced the statement at the Board of Directors meeting in January — also announcing that McQueen would retire by the end of the year.
The audit did not call for replacing the internal unit with an independent monitor, noting FERC Order 719 allowed RTOs to choose their structure.
Aside from CAISO, SPP is the only regional grid operator that does not have an independent market monitor, and SPP officials indicated Friday they intend to keep that arrangement.
“We’re pleased the auditors found no instances in which SPP exerted inappropriate influence on the MMU,” SPP General Counsel Paul Suskie said in a statement. “Neither did FERC conclude the MMU is not independent, nor recommend that SPP’s market-monitoring functions be performed by a third party. As a result, SPP can continue to operate with an internal MMU, and MMU staff will be employees of SPP and participate in our collaborative stakeholder process while remaining independent.”
In a letter appended to the report, McQueen and Suskie agreed with all of the audit’s 16 recommendations, but challenged auditors’ repeated use of the terms “inappropriate” and “improperly.”
“SPP understands that, where the report discussed items that were inappropriate or improper, FERC audit staff is referring to processes, procedures and structures that could potentially result in inappropriate or improper conduct or that could demonstrate an appearance of impropriety,” they wrote. “No such activity took place.”
Suskie and McQueen said the audit was “a valuable process for SPP to assess the continued working relationship between [the] RTO and MMU given the evolution of SPP and its markers and services.”
The audit report was among the topics of conversation at Monday’s Regional State Committee meeting, where SPP CEO Nick Brown defended the RTO’s firing of Hyatt and Mooney. “No one is terminated from SPP without multiple officers concurring,” he said. “The board was very much informed, specifically the Oversight Committee. We were quite cautious, but very firm in our decision. I will say we were unanimous in our decision.”
FERC’s recommendations, Brown added, “really decrease the potential for any inappropriate influence over the independence of the Market Monitoring Unit.”
17-Month Inquiry
During the 17-month inquiry, auditors conducted three site visits and reviewed 30,000 emails of MMU and RTO employees “to understand communications between both groups, with outside parties and internal to the MMU and SPP RTO.”
Although the audit also looked at SPP’s compliance with its transmission-provider obligations, FERC accounting regulations and FERC Form 1 financial reporting requirements, it issued findings on the MMU only.
The auditors said that the independence and separation of function concerns they have regarding the MMU are “similar, in some respects,” to those identified in the commission’s 2008 audit of SPP’s Regional Entity, which is charged with enforcing NERC reliability standards (PA08-2, AD09-3).
RTO Executives at Oversight Committee Meetings
To ensure its independence from SPP management, the MMU is supposed to be under the control of the Board of Directors’ Oversight Committee. But the commission noted that until recently, RTO executives attended the MMU’s meetings with the committee.
“The presence of an SPP RTO executive in these meetings … could result in SPP RTO potentially exercising undue influence during such meetings and inappropriately having access to information associated with MMU operations,” the auditors said.
“Audit staff did not identify evidence of any impropriety in practice (nor has any such impropriety been alleged), and notes that the Oversight Committee can, and during the audit period did, conduct MMU-related meetings in executive session without the presence of the SPP RTO executive, when it deemed it appropriate. However, the presence of the SPP RTO executive in MMU-related executive sessions does not reflect the necessary separation of functions.”
In their letter, McQueen and Suskie acknowledged that the presence of RTO management at OC meetings “could give rise to the perception that there is an insufficient degree of separation between the MMU and SPP RTO.”
Incentive Compensation
The commission also said SPP executives “were inappropriately involved in the performance evaluation of the MMU director, approval of the MMU budget and compensation adjustments for MMU staff.”
“Audit staff is concerned that such involvement by SPP RTO executives creates issues in terms of using incentive compensation to exercise influence over MMU staff not to oppose SPP RTO initiatives,” FERC said.
“Rather than involving SPP RTO executives in the operations of the MMU, the audit staff determined that the Oversight Committee should take a more active role in its oversight of the MMU including performance evaluation of the MMU director as well as the overall performance of the MMU. This would be similar to the manner in which the SPP RE board provides guidance and oversight to the RE.”
The auditors said they met with the full Oversight Committee at its quarterly meeting at the beginning of the audit and later conducted several phone interviews with Chairman Martin. Martin told RTO Insider in an interview May 2 that he met with the auditors once, at the committee meeting in March 2015. He said it “was not an in-depth session where we were looking at specifics.” (See FERC Ended Audit Without Talking to Key Witness.)
Legal Counsel
Until March 2015 — after FERC began the audit — the MMU relied on SPP for legal services because it lacked its own counsel. “The MMU’s reliance on the SPP RTO for legal services and support could be problematic, particularly when the MMU disagreed with an SPP RTO position and desired to make a filing to the commission in opposition to an SPP RTO filing,” the report said. “Difficulties may arise both in terms of allocation of available legal staff as well as possible concerns of conflict of interest.”
RTO Insider reported that, until the last 18 months, the MMU generally filed only testimony packaged with RTO filings. (See SPP MMU Struggles to Find its Voice.)
MMU Shared Staff
The auditors said the lack of “clear separation” between the RTO and MMU staff also resulted from MMU staff’s involvement in RTO activities unrelated to MMU operations, particularly in 2013 and early 2014 when the RTO was racing to launch its Integrated Marketplace.
“This effectively blurred the lines of separation by making resources appear fungible,” the auditors said. “Moreover, SPP RTO rewarded MMU staff in the form of incentive compensation for their efforts on behalf of SPP RTO. This economic incentive further clouded the separation between the MMU and SPP RTO.”
MMU Involvement with Tariff Formation
The audit cited “tension … between the role of the MMU as an independent organization and the role of the MMU as an internal function of SPP, and therefore an integral part of its collaborative process.”
“Central to this tension are the concepts that, as SPP RTO employees, MMU staff should conduct themselves in a manner that promotes the interests of SPP RTO, while as members of the MMU the staff might be engaged in activities and take positions that run counter to what may be the consensus of the SPP members,” FERC said. “However, this inherent tension was latent until a contentious issue arose between the MMU and SPP RTO.”
The issue was the RTO’s attempt to mollify generators who became upset after the Integrated Marketplace opened that the MMU was not including general operations and maintenance in its calculations of cost-based offers. (See SPP MMU Struggles to Find its Voice.)
“At times, the MMU staff acted in a manner to steer the outcome rather than permitting the stakeholder process to arrive at a position that reflected their independent collaboration, consensus development and team-based approach,” FERC said. “It is incumbent on the MMU to advise the RTO and other interested parties of its views regarding any needed rule and tariff changes and the merits of proposed changes, but not to obstruct the SPP RTO’s process.
“The MMU should not disrupt the SPP process when tariff revisions are not acceptable to the MMU; rather, it should intervene when the proposal comes before the SPP board and when it is filed with the commission.”
The auditors criticized McQueen’s decision to join the Mitigated Offer Strike Team, which was created to reach a compromise.
“The MMU director wanted to restore a good working relationship, consistent with the SPP principle of being ‘relationship-based,’” the auditors said. “While the intent to improve relationships might be justified in general principle, audit staff believes that the MMU director’s efforts were counterproductive in this instance.”
Operational Separation
Auditors also raised concerns that the MMU staff works in offices accessible to RTO employees, most in open cubicles. “Audit staff observed that conversations can be overheard and sensitive materials visible to parties outside the MMU. Conversations by MMU staff members may involve discussions of matters such as ongoing investigations and potential referrals to the commission.”
SPP Headquarters Source: WER Architects
The commission said the MMU should consider erecting physical barriers and key card access to ensure the physical separation of MMU staff from other RTO staff, as the commission required in the RE audit.
McQueen and Suskie said the MMU lacks the resources to erect security barriers but said they are “looking into practical solutions” to address the concern.
Compliance Filings
The commission required the RTO to submit a compliance filing within 30 days detailing how it plans to respond to the recommendations, along with quarterly status reports on its progress.
[Editor’s Note: SPP/ERCOT Correspondent Tom Kleckner worked as an SPP spokesman from 2011 to 2015; Editor-in-Chief Rich Heidorn Jr. participated in the 2008 audit of SPP as a member of FERC’s Office of Enforcement.]
MARLBOROUGH, Mass. — New England states are moving ahead with their own greenhouse gas reduction programs while EPA’s Clean Power Plan remains in legal limbo.
At the Northeast Energy and Commerce Association Annual Environmental Conference on Wednesday, panelists said that the nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative remains on course despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in February to stay the federal plan pending legal challenges.
“We don’t have much in the way of travel to reach the Clean Power Plan targets under the current design of the final rule,” said Patricio Silva, a senior system planning analyst at ISO-NE. (See Northeast on Way to Compliance with Clean Power Plan.)
RGGI, which EPA has cited as a model, is currently committed to a 2.5% annual reduction in carbon emissions. But it undergoes program reviews every three years — including one now in progress — that could adjust targets.
The CPP seeks to reduce carbon emissions from the power sector by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030, with interim reductions required in 2022-2029.
While simple cycle gas turbines are exempt from the CPP, RGGI also includes all fossil units above 25 MW. EPA did not include simple cycle — or peaker — plants, reasoning that they run too infrequently to have a major impact on emission reductions. “That is an important distinction,” Silva said, calling it a sign of the RGGI states’ more aggressive carbon reduction goals.
According to the Energy Information Administration, ISO-NE’s carbon intensity was 1,037 pounds of CO2/MWh in 2015, which is projected to drop to 986 lbs/MWh by 2030, well within the CPP targets (1,305 lbs/MWh for existing fossil fuel-fired electric steam generating units and 771 lbs/MWh for existing natural gas combined cycle units), Silva said.
While the Supreme Court is likely to determine the CPP’s ultimate fate, the legal challenge is currently before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (West Virginia v. EPA, No. 15-1363). In May, the D.C. Circuit rescheduled oral arguments from June 2 to Sept. 27, 2016, skipping an initial review by a three-judge panel and moving directly to an en banc hearing with nine of the circuit’s 11 active judges.
Carrie Jenks, a senior analyst with M.J. Bradley and Associates, said that while the CPP legal challenge may affect some states’ planning, the RGGI states have continued to plan for compliance, leading to key questions.
“RGGI [has to] decide if it would trade with states outside of its region, such as other PJM states, either at the start of the program or at a future date. RGGI states also need to consider what the CPP targets mean for the overall RGGI cap as the states undertake the RGGI program review, and how will such decisions may affect states outside of RGGI,” she said.
Nancy Seidman, assistant commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, credited EPA for recognizing the emission reductions achieved by the RGGI states. “We’ve done a lot and fortunately EPA considered that,” she said.
“What’s important now is, where do we want to go next? What are our goals for 2030 with or without the Clean Power Plan? And how does that mesh with states’ individual goals?” she said.
RAPID CITY, S.D. — SPP’s first competitive project under FERC Order 1000, approved by the Board of Directors with some fanfare in April, is being canceled because of falling load projections.
The Markets and Operations Policy Committee last week accepted staff’s recommendation to withdraw the project’s notice-to-construct. The 22.6-mile 115-kV line from Walkemeyer to North Liberal in southwest Kansas was awarded to Mid-Kansas Electric. The board is expected to finalize the decision when it meets next week. (See SPP Awards First Order 1000 Project — But it May Not Be Needed.)
Walkemeyer Project Diagram Source: SPP
Al Tamimi, vice president of transmission planning and policy for Sunflower Electric Power, which operates Mid-Kansas, said the line was no longer needed because of a drop in forecasted loads from oil and gas exploration. Mid-Kansas officials said they had seen a 27% slide in load forecasts within the project’s region since the initial study was done three years ago.
Mid-Kansas asked SPP to re-evaluate the need for the transmission line when it won the construction bid in April. Staff’s analysis indicated the area’s load projections had dropped from 173 MW to 25 MW. Even when the project is removed from the planning models, staff found there would be no thermal or voltage violations until 2070.
The Walkemeyer project’s noncompetitive first phase, a new 345/115-kV substation and transformer and a 1-mile line to the Walkemeyer 115-kV station, will still be built.
The transmission line “was very dependent on the highest load forecast. We told you this 14, 15 months ago,” Tamimi said. “I don’t care whether it’s a FERC 1000 project or not, if the load is not there, why am I going to do” the project?
Mid-Kansas’ bid was chosen from 11 evaluated by a panel of industry experts, who were compensated for their time.
Millions Wasted?
Bob Burner, director of commercial transmission development for Duke Energy, questioned why SPP issued the solicitation, noting Mid-Kansas’ re-evaluation request came after bidders “had gone through the effort and expense to submit proposals to the [request for proposals], probably at the expense of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“Millions,” murmured one stakeholder.
“Developers in a project do accept reasonable risk,” Burner said. “I don’t know the solution, but there has to be something better than what we just went through.”
“I understand that as a participant in this process, I participate at some cost,” Westar Energy’s John Olsen said. “Maybe we can reimburse minimal costs in the future to those who participated in that solicitation.”
Southwestern Public Service’s Bill Grant, chair of the Competitive Transmission Process Task Force, said his group will seek improvements to the competitive process in their future meetings.
“This is a difficult conversation that needs to happen. We will look at whether we can reimburse participants,” Grant said. “Maybe there was a point where we could have raised a caution flag before going through the rest of the process. I don’t know that FERC will allow us to pass those costs on to customers.”
Other Projects
The MOPC also accepted staff’s recommendation to withdraw an NTC for a 115-kV reactor and approve a rebuild of a 138-kV line near Shreveport, La. Staff indicated the reactor would no longer be needed before its break-even point, and that rebuilding the Linwood-South Shreveport line would save $3.55 million without the reactor. American Electric Power will build the project.
However, members rejected a recommendation to replace a 115-kV line in western North Dakota with a 345-kV line as part of SPP’s re-evaluations of the 2016 Integrated Transmission Planning Near-Term assessment.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative requested a re-evaluation of its planned 33-mile transmission line between a pair of substations because of what it called inaccurate models and siting difficulties. Staff recommended replacing the original 115-kV project with a 345-kV line to address a nearby load pocket, but it failed on a roll call vote.
A follow-up motion to approve the 345-kV line, but operate it at 115 kV, was also rejected. The 345-kV project is estimated to cost $63.6 million, the other $50.9 million.
Members did approve a staff recommendation to issue three NTCs and withdraw two NTCs for projects deferred in April, all part of the 2016 ITPNT portfolio.
The withdrawn NTCs included AEP’s 69-kV rebuild in West Texas, estimated to cost $31 million, and Westar’s new 230-kV substation and transformer in Kansas, pegged at $21.7 million. AEP did get NTCs for a pair of 69-kV line rebuilds in West Texas, projected to cost a combined $10.4 million, while SPS received an NTC for a 115-kV line, substation and transformer at $11.6 million.
The MOPC also unanimously approved staff’s recommendation to re-set the baseline cost for a pair of projects outside the bandwidth. A Westar 69-kV rebuild and a Mid-Kansas 138-kV line are both more than 20% under budget.
MISO closed its request for proposals on the Duff-Coleman 345-kV transmission project in Southern Indiana on July 6, saying it was pleased with the response.
Priti Patel, MISO North regional executive, said MISO was satisfied with the “robust” number of proposals on its first competitively bid project, but she didn’t disclose the number of proposals received or which developers submitted them. Patel said the RTO will post the list of developers that submitted complete proposals by Aug. 19. In the meantime, proposals are under review to determine their eligibility. Forty-eight developers qualified to submit bids to MISO.
“The broad interest from transmission developers demonstrates confidence in MISO’s competitive processes,” Patel said in a statement.
Per its original timeline, MISO expects to announce its transmission developer pick on the $67.4 million project by Dec. 30. The RFP window opened in January for the work, which includes the construction of two substations and a 28.5-mile line linking them. (See MISO Seeks Bids on Duff-Coleman Project.)
Berkshire Hathaway Energy is contesting FERC’s June decision to revoke the ability of the company’s subsidiaries to sell power at market-based rates in four neighboring balancing authority areas in the West.
The commission’s June 9 order prohibited Berkshire-owned utilities PacifiCorp and NV Energy — as well as 19 other affiliates — from offering power at market rates in the PacifiCorp East (PACE), PacifiCorp West (PACW), Idaho Power and NorthWestern areas based on concerns about horizontal market power. (See Berkshire Market-Based Rate Sales Restricted in 4 BAAs.)
In a request for rehearing and clarification filed July 11, Berkshire argued that the commission failed to make a “definitive finding” that the company possesses market power in the four regions before revoking market-based rate authority, as required under FERC Order 697 (ER10-2475).
“[The commission] did not provide sound reasoning, nor did it show a path to how it arrived at its decision,” the company said. “But, nonetheless, the commission moved ahead and revoked market-based rate authority and imposed cost-based rates.”
‘Moving Target’
Berkshire contended that it was denied due process after FERC failed to notify the company of the commission’s “newly announced standards for determining market power” ahead of the company’s initial “change in status” filing — standards it said the commission “articulated for the first time” in the June 9 ruling.
The company’s utilities “have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to comply with any guidance that the commission has provided,” Berkshire said. “They should not be penalized for failing to hit a constantly moving target.”
Berkshire also sought clarification on whether its affiliates can use their own “case-specific” cost-based rates for sales in the four areas, or must rely on the commission’s default cost-based rates — requesting rehearing if it is the latter.
The June ruling stemmed from Berkshire’s 2013 acquisition of NV Energy, which put Warren Buffett’s conglomerate in control of 19 GW of generating capacity in the West — enough capacity to fail the “pivotal supplier” and “wholesale market share” indicative screens for market power in the four areas.
Delivered Price Test
Generation owners that fail the screens can disprove the presumption of market power by performing a more thorough delivered price test (DPT). The DPT factors in the native load commitments and generating capacity of all suppliers in a region in order to determine each supplier’s “available economic capacity” over 10 different seasons and load conditions.
The commission ruled that the DPT analysis submitted by the Berkshire companies was insufficient to rebut the presumption of market power, having failed to include “inputs, assumptions and facts appropriate to the unique characteristics of each balancing authority area when studying that particular area.”
The ruling pointed to an instance in which Berkshire’s analysis erroneously listed Idaho Power as a competing supplier during periods when that utility would “likely not” be positioned to provide competition.
Berkshire countered the finding that its tests were unreliable, saying that each of its 57 “unique” DPT analyses “was prepared in accordance with the commission’s previously announced requirements and each was similar in form and substance to” analyses the commission had previously approved.
FERC identified five alleged deficiencies in the tests, the company said.
“On that basis [the commission] concluded that ‘we are unable to validate the results of the [Berkshire companies’] DPT analysis and are unable to rely on the DPT analysis,’” Berkshire said.
Berkshire also questioned the commission’s use of its own “undisclosed analyses using alternative assumptions or data that yielded different results than those provided by” the company, saying that the commission failed to include the results of those analyses in the proceeding.
The company further contended that the “purported deficiencies” in the DPTs were the “sole basis” for the commission revoking market-based rate authority, rather than any alternative analyses or evidence submitted by intervenors or the commission itself.
“By its own admission, the commission’s decision was not ‘based on the results of the DPTs’ and does not purport to have made any finding based on the DPT results or any other substantial evidence that the [Berkshire companies] have market power in any of the mitigated markets,” the company said.
FERC on Wednesday directed staff to begin an investigation of alleged illegal tree-cutting along the New York section of the Constitution Pipeline route despite a finding that state officials’ demands for a stay and sanctions were “procedurally deficient” (CP13-499).
The order was in response to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s complaint in May that the pipeline’s developers allowed tree-cutting in defiance of a FERC prohibition in New York. Constitution denied the allegations and asked FERC to dismiss the complaint. (See Constitution Asks FERC to Dismiss New York Complaint.)
“While procedurally deficient as a complaint and petition, the May 13 filing may constitute a valid request for investigation,” FERC wrote. “Accordingly, the commission construes it as such and refers this matter to commission staff for further examination and inquiry as may be appropriate.”
Schneiderman alleged there is “a reasonable basis to conclude that Constitution expressly or tacitly authorized, encouraged and/or condoned the tree and vegetation cutting, clear-cutting and other ground disturbance activities” within the pipeline’s 99-mile right of way in New York. Tree cutting had been allowed by FERC in the approximately 25-mile section in Pennsylvania.
FERC said Schneiderman’s filing was deficient because it “does not include any specific facts to support such allegations, but instead relies upon speculation.”
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation in April denied a water quality permit, effectively stopping the project. Constitution has appealed in federal court. (See Constitution Pipeline Appeals Rejection of Water Permit.)
While ruling that the New York complaint was insufficient, FERC said that Constitution could “face potential sanctions” if it failed to comply with its regulations.
The pipeline, intended to bring Pennsylvania shale gas into New York and New England, is being developed by Williams Partners, Cabot Oil & Gas, Piedmont Natural Gas and WGL Holdings. It received FERC approval in December 2014.
ERCOT is soliciting must-run alternatives (MRAs) to the reliability-must-run agreement it recently extended to NRG Texas Power’s Greens Bayou Unit 5 in the Houston area.
The Texas grid operator issued a notice to market participants July 13, saying it is seeking “lower-cost, effective alternatives” to the RMR agreement, its first in five years.
ERCOT in June executed the agreement through September to strengthen transmission stability in the Houston region. Its Board of Directors later extended the RMR through June 2018. (See “Board Expands Greens Bayou RMR Contract to 2018,” ERCOT Board of Directors Briefs.)
Greens Bayou Source: NRG
Under the agreement’s terms, the 371-MW gas-powered unit must be available during summer months, between July 2016 through June 2018. ERCOT must pay $3,185/MWh year-round and an incentive factor of as much as 10% to reserve the unit’s capacity.
Qualified scheduling entities, representing generation and demand response resources, have until Aug. 24 to submit proposals. ERCOT says it will consider individual and aggregated options that provide reliability benefits comparable to the RMR unit, while providing cost savings.
ERCOT staff has said it expects that the $590 million Houston Import Project, scheduled to be completed by summer 2018, will help solve the area’s transmission concerns.
The ISO’s protocols authorize it to replace an RMR agreement with an MRA agreement if the MRA resource:
Provides an acceptable solution to the reliability concern the RMR unit currently addresses;
Provides at least $1 million in annual savings over the projected net annualized costs for the RMR unit; and
Satisfies objective financial criteria demonstrating that the MRA resource’s provider is reasonably able to fulfill its performance obligations.
