FERC on Thursday approved several interconnection and facilities service agreements submitted by MISO to comply with the commission’s 2019 ruling reinstating the right of transmission owners to provide initial funding for transmission upgrades for generation projects. FERC had directed MISO to remove the unilateral option for a TO to elect...

PJM stakeholders unanimously endorsed an issue charge aimed at developing a cost recovery mechanism for generators forced to upgrade their facilities to comply with certain NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards regarding interconnection reliability operating limits (IROLs). Darrell Frogg, senior engineer for generation at PJM, reviewed the problem statement and...

The SPP Marketing Monitoring Unit (MMU)’s quarterly State of the Market report for the winter 2021 period is dominated by the historic winter weather events of mid-February. The storms left 73% of the continental U.S. covered in snow and broke 3,000 daily and 79 all-time low-temperature records, according to the...

MISO and SPP told state regulators Monday that their joint targeted interconnection queue study has moved into its technical phase and promised more stakeholder involvement in the effort in the months ahead. Speaking to the Organization of MISO States and SPP Regional State Committee’s Seams Liaison Committee (SLC), MISO’s Aubrey...

Portland General Electric CEO Maria Pope expressed regret last week over a breakdown in public communications as a series of ice storms swept through Oregon in February, leaving nearly half the utility’s customers without power. About 421,000 of PGE’s customers lost power at some point during the storms and their...

‎MISO has developed a rough idea of how it might manage dynamic transmission line ratings should FERC require variable ratings. Brian Kiefer, manager of operations support engineering, said the process involves compiling a list of facilities that have bound in the real-time market in the past two years and could...

Sponsors of the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM) told FERC on Tuesday that the commission should approve the proposal as is, saying critics’ objections are flawed or irrelevant. More than a dozen utilities and cooperatives, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, Southern Co. and Duke Energy, proposed SEEM to reduce the...

ERCOT’s Technical Advisory Committee last week conducted its first regular meeting since the February winter storm, with its aftereffects unsurprisingly dominating the discussion. Liz Jones, Oncor | Texas RE Liz Jones, vice president of regulatory affairs for Oncor Electric Delivery, addressed the committee regarding a recent ERCOT market notice alerting...

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has approved a power purchase agreement between Xcel Energy and a 200-MW Iowa wind farm that the utility says is the "last good-priced" wind available in MISO. The commission approved the agreement with NextEra Energy Resources’ Heartland Divide II on March 18 over the objections...

PJM proposed allowing generators deemed to be critical for determining interconnection reliability operating limits to recover their required upgrade costs. PJM has proposed developing a cost recovery mechanism for generators forced to upgrade their facilities to comply with certain NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards regarding interconnection reliability operating limits...