Page 1069 – RTO Insider

July 26, 2020

MISO Anticipates High Energy Prices at 50% Renewables

MISO staff last week reiterated that they can likely reliably operate the grid with a 50% renewable energy mix but warned that variables like generation retirements, fuel prices and solar siting could send energy prices soaring at certain times.

The findings were the latest in the grid operator’s ongoing, multiphase Renewable Integration Impact Assessment (RIIA). Staff’s findings focused on MISO’s ability to provide energy during all operating hours throughout the year as renewable penetration increases.

During a virtual workshop Friday, MISO Senior Policy Studies Planner Chen-Hao Tsai said that for the most part, the RTO can operate the system reliably with 50% renewable penetration, but only if it has the dramatic transmission expansion it identified earlier in the study. (See MISO Renewable Study Shows More Tx, Tech Needed.)

MISO energy prices renewables — Chen-Hao Tsai, MISO | *University of Texas at Austin*

Tsai said escalating fuel prices, increases in solar generation and the pace of generation retirements play pivotal roles and could stand in the way of a 50% systemwide renewable portfolio. Any of those variables alone could set off a rise in LMPs, MISO said.

At a 50% penetration, MISO said prices predictably spike in the evening, when peaking units — mostly combined cycle gas units — step in to fill ramping needs. However, Tsai said that if natural gas prices more than double from about $2.50/MMBtu to about $5.60/MMBtu, more coal units will be used for ramping needs, driving up LMPs.

Multiple stakeholders observed that steady, lumbering coal units aren’t designed to provide quick on-and-off daily ramping. Some said the cycling MISO contemplated in the study would cause wear and tear on coal plants and possibly lead to more forced outages.

Other stakeholders pointed out that MISO is still leaving storage out of the study equation, ignoring the technology’s capability to dull ramping needs. Tsai said the RTO plans to reveal new study results with storage considerations in late August or early September.

A spate of thermal unit retirements might also threaten the reliability of a 50% renewable fleet, Tsai said. High retirements paired with a 50% renewable fleet also produce high prices in the evening, he said, with July evening hours yielding systemwide prices as high as $300/MWh.

“In many cases, many peaker units received over $1,000/MWh,” Tsai said. “We still make the penetration target, but we pay high system prices.”

On the other hand, the study indicates that increased solar capacity expected in MISO South would drop LMPs by midday and make the region an exporter to the rest of the RTO’s footprint during those hours. The trend also leads to significant middle-of-the-day solar curtailment during spring and fall months.

Tsai said the solar buildout “creates a new stressed operating point during the shoulder load periods, which may need further review.”

MISO’s earlier RIIA results, released in June, predicted dramatic solar generation expansion. (See Study Foresees MISO Solar Eclipsing Wind.)

The RTO is also accounting for hundreds of gigawatts of renewable energy in its 20-year transmission planning. It foresees as much as 137 GW of renewables added and up to 114.5 GW in generation retirements by 2040. (See MISO Foresees Massive Shift to Renewables by 2040.)

Again, stakeholders said MISO should investigate how storage devices could soak up excess solar capacity. Some also asked the RTO to revisit the transmission needs it identified late last year to accommodate a 50% renewable mix. Tsai said the study’s transmission expansion portion is too involved and time-consuming to redo.

MISO plans to wrap up the RIIA study by the end of the year.

July 26, 2020January 18, 2024

SPP Briefs: Week of July 20, 2020

SPP said Wednesday that its Western Energy Imbalance Service (WEIS) market is at risk of falling behind schedule because it is still waiting on FERC approval of the market’s standalone Tariff.

The RTO had asked for a July 21 effective date, but that deadline passed the day before the Western Markets Executive Committee met virtually. FERC in April issued a deficiency letter, asking for more information on 14 issues. SPP filed a response in May.

“Without having any sort of regulatory certainty, we have to recognize that that is a risk to the program,” David Kelley, SPP’s director of seams and market design, told the committee. “There are a number of things waiting to move forward, pending receipt of the FERC order. There’s still a lot hinging on us getting that order.”

Kelley said the rest of SPP’s work to stand up its WEIS market by February 2021 is on schedule and “going according to plan.” Market trials are scheduled to start in August.

The WEIS market is modeled on the Energy Imbalance Market that it operated from 2007 to 2014. It has attracted eight participants. (See SPP Board OKs $9.5M to Build Western EIS Market.)

SPP has proposed a 22-cent/MWh net energy-for-load rate for the first year of market operations, based on annual $5 million operating costs, and said initial implementation costs will total $9.5 million. The commission asked the RTO to describe what costs are included in the implementation costs and to explain the ongoing administrative costs that it intends to recover through the WEIS rate (ER20-1059, ER20-1060).

Colorado utilities Xcel Energy-Colorado, Colorado Springs Utilities, Platte River Power Authority and Black Hills Energy have protested the WEIS filings. They contend an existing and neighboring joint dispatch agreement could be impaired by the WEIS market dispatch and that its market flows may harm the Western Interconnection Unscheduled Flow Mitigation Plan. They also contend SPP’s proposal disregards the Northwest Power Pool’s activities and could island Xcel’s balancing authority area from the NWPP reserve sharing group.

The Colorado utilities have all signed up for CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market.

Advance Power Alliance Now an SPP Member

SPP said last week that the Advanced Power Alliance has become its first alternative power/public interest member, raising its membership count to 102. The group is an industry trade association supporting renewable generation and energy storage in SPP and ERCOT.

APA joined SPP following FERC-directed changes to the RTO’s exit fee after a Federal Power Act Section 206 filing by the group and the American Wind Energy Association in 2018. The commission ordered the RTO to eliminate its exit fee for its non-transmission-owning and non-load-serving members. SPP members pay an annual $6,000 membership fee, but exit fees for non-load-serving entities could cost $600,000 under the old format. (See FERC Tells SPP to End Exit Fee for Non-TOs.)

APA CEO Jeff Clark said the organization is “excited” about the opportunity to have “a more significant impact on the policies discussed and adopted in the RTO.” As a member, APA can now vote and join stakeholder groups.

“The SPP is home to some of the best renewable resources in the world. … The growth of clean, renewable generation in the region has been rapid,” Clark said in a statement.

MMU Releases Spring Quarterly Report

SPP’s average hourly load this spring was down 6% from last year, according to the Market Monitoring Unit’s spring S tate of the M arket report.

The report, which covers March through May, attributed the decrease to a drop in demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic and to fewer heating and cooling days.

The average day-ahead price was $14.03/MWh, and the average real-time price was $12.58/MWh, down 41% and 44%, respectively, from last spring. The April day-ahead price of $14.03/MWh and real-time price of $10.43/MWh were the lowest monthly average prices since the Integrated Marketplace went online in 2014.

Coal-fired generation’s share of the fuel mix again fell, down from 32% last spring to 24% this year. Gas-fired generation and wind energy picked up the slack.

The report’s special issues section discusses the impact of a 2018 FERC order that resulted in a major-maintenance cost component for mitigated offers, addressing market participants’ concerns about recovering costs associated with mitigated resources (ER18-1632). (See FERC Accepts SPP Proposal on Maintenance Costs in Offers.)

Of the 491 thermal units eligible for major-maintenance adders, 113 have been approved, the report says.

The MMU will host a webinar Friday to discuss the report and answer questions.

New Wind Mark of 18,343 MW

SPP said it upped its wind-peak record to 18,343 MW on July 17, breaking the previous mark of 18,259 MW established Jan. 8. The record came at 11:13 p.m.

October Board, MOPC Meetings Now Virtual

SPP’s October quarterly governance meetings will be virtual only. The meetings were originally scheduled to be held at its corporate headquarters in Little Rock, Ark., during the weeks of Oct. 12 and Oct. 26.

The Board of Directors, Members Committee, Markets and Operations Policy Committee, Regional State Committee, Strategic Planning Committee and most other governance groups have not met in person since January.

SPP has discussed a mix of in-person and virtual meetings in 2021. Under that format, the MOPC would meet in person and the board virtually during one quarter, and then switch for the following quarter.

July 26, 2020

NextEra Dips its Toe in Hydrogen Energy

NextEra Energy continues to stake out a position as a clean-energy leader. Already the self-proclaimed “world’s largest generator of renewable energy” with more than 17 GW of wind and solar generation in North America, the company is now dabbling in hydrogen energy.

During the company’s second-quarter earnings call with financial analysts Friday, senior executives said that they are taking a “toe-in-the-water” approach, as they did with solar and battery storage, to green hydrogen. NextEra’s Florida Power & Light plans to propose a $65 million pilot project that will use “clipped,” or unneeded, solar energy to produce 100% green hydrogen through a 20-MW electrolysis system.

The hydrogen can be used to replace some natural gas consumed at one of the three turbines at the Okeechobee Clean Energy Center. The project is expected to be online in 2023.

“We remain confident as ever that wind, solar and battery storage will be hugely disruptive to the country’s existing generation fleet,” NextEra CFO Rebecca Kujawa said. “However, to achieve an emissions-free future, we believe that other technologies will be necessary, and we are particularly excited about the long-term potential of hydrogen.”

NextEra hydrogen — Florida Power & Light’s Okeechobee Clean Energy Center is expected to host NextEra’s green hydrogen pilot project. | *FPL*

Kujawa said the Juno Beach, Fla.-based company will continue to evaluate other potential hydrogen opportunities across its businesses, though she said the near-term investments will be small when compared with NextEra’s overall capital program.

The company says it has already invested more than $20 billion in renewable technologies. Its NextEra Energy Resources subsidiary has a backlog of 14.4 GW of renewables projects — more, it said, than the operating wind and solar portfolios of all but two other companies in the world.

“There’s clearly an opportunity … to displace the last 10% of the carbon emissions out of the electric sector by manufacturing hydrogen with renewables [in five to 10 years],” CEO Jim Robo said. “This is going to drive gigawatts and gigawatts and gigawatts and gigawatts of renewable demand in this country. There is no one better positioned than us to take advantage of that. This is a big strategic initiative for us, and we’re going to drive it, and it’s going to be very important for this company.”

Robo also told analysts NextEra remains very interested in Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s troubled utility. (See NextEra Plans to Combine FPL, Gulf Power Utilities.)

“We continue to be focused on trying to make that happen,” he said. “I continue to believe that there’s not a utility in the country that we couldn’t run more efficiently and better for customers.”

NextEra reported second-quarter net income of $1.275 billion ($2.59/share), up from $1.234 billion ($2.56/share) a year ago. The company’s adjusted earnings came in $2.61/share, exceeding the Zacks Investment Research consensus estimate of $2.50/share.

The company’s share price gained $2.32 after opening at $282.88 on Friday, but it slid along with the rest of the market during the day. It closed at $280.25, a 79-cent drop from the previous close.

July 24, 2020

PJM Consumer Advocates Seek New Venue for CIP Talks

PJM’s consumer advocates on Thursday proposed changing the venue for discussions on NERC’s reliability standard on critical transmission facilities, saying the current process is moving too slowly.

Greg Poulos, executive director of the Consumer Advocates of the PJM States (CAPS), told the Markets and Reliability Committee that his organization will seek a vote next month to eliminate the Planning Committee’s special sessions on Critical Infrastructure Stakeholder Oversight (CISO) and move discussions to the MRC under a revised issue charge.

PJM CIP — Greg Poulos, CAPS | © *RTO Insider*

NERC’s Critical Infrastructure Protection standard (CIP-014) requires transmission owners to protect assets whose loss or sabotage could result in widespread instability, uncontrolled separation or cascading outages.

Last August, the PJM Transmission Owners gave notice they were planning to make a Federal Power Act Section 205 filing to develop a solution for addressing existing CIP-014 facilities, almost two years after Poulos said PJM raised the issue at its 2017 Grid 20/20 conference. (See PJM Defends Resilience Focus as Pre-emptive, not Excessive.)

In December 2019, stakeholders approved the issue charge that created the CISO discussions at the PC, which was to focus on avoiding future CIP-014 facilities and mitigating any that arise.

About a month later, the TOs’ made a 205 filing outlining their plan for addressing fewer than 20 existing CIP-014 facilities, a plan approved by FERC in March (ER20-841). (See FERC Approves PJM TOs’ Critical Tx Process.)

Poulos said advocates were proposing the venue change in part because the CISO process was moving too slowly. CISO’s work plan called for completing its work in June and returning to the full PC with a proposal in July, but PJM now expects it to work into September.

“We don’t take this [action] lightly,” Poulos said. “Aspects of this discussion really haven’t moved at all in the last couple months in the Planning Committee.”

Poulos also said the advocates didn’t feel their proposals would get a fair hearing in the PC because committee Chair Dave Souder has expressed opposition to CAPS’ proposals.

“When the chair is saying we’re opposing your position, it’s really hard to feel like we’re going to have a good opportunity to be heard,” he said. “There is some frustration with how the Planning Committee works compared with other committees. There is no other chair that we can think of that has spoken against [a stakeholder] package.”

Souder said development of PJM’s proposals were slowed by the RTO’s consultation with ReliabilityFirst and SERC Reliability on how to provide stakeholders information on CIP-014 mitigation projects under the strict confidentiality rules in the CIP standards. “The outreach took time but was required to provide CISO the needed clarity,” he said.

PJM introduced “avoidance” proposals in June and July and expects to introduce a “mitigation approach” at the August CISO meeting, Souder said. “Revoking and reassigning the issue charge is not necessary and will only delay this process,” he said.

No other stakeholders have sponsored a package on mitigation, although CAPS introduced mitigation “components” in April, he said. According to Souder, CAPS refused to incorporate the RTO’s feedback in its proposal, which he said would violate the CIP standards.

CISO can complete its assignment in September with a PC vote in November and MRC vote before the end of the year, Souder said.

Poulos said CAPS is concerned that unless the issue is moved to the MRC, stakeholders might miss the opportunity for input if the TOs choose to make another 205 filing. The TOs must give stakeholders 30 days’ notice of plans for a filing, and FERC must rule on it within 60 days of filing.

“That 90-day period causes us concern,” he said.

Robert Taylor of Exelon said PJM sought input from SERC, RF and NERC at CAPS’ request. “To ask PJM to do that outreach and then assert that that outreach is slowing down progress is problematic,” he said.

David “Scarp” Scarpignato of Calpine defended PJM’s handling of the CISO proceedings, saying it was a “very informative, very well-run stakeholder process.”

Alex Stern, director of RTO strategy for PSEG Services, accused CAPS of seeking a “do-over.”

“It’s extremely dangerous to hear someone suggest that because they disagree with a PJM chair of a standing committee, the chair is somehow incapable of allowing voices to be properly heard,” he said. “I don’t think that’s happened in this proceeding.”

Jim Davis of Dominion Energy said the original issue charge had the correct balance between transparency and CIP confidentiality requirements. “If we were to provide all the details on mitigation projects, this proposal would result in transmission providers … giving the public a roadmap to the grid’s vulnerabilities,” he said.

Susan Bruce, representing the PJM Industrial Customer Coalition, said there is “frustration and concern from those who are paying the bills.”

“How can we fix this so customers and state regulators can have additional confidence?” she asked.

July 24, 2020

Ohio Gov. Calls for Repeal of Nuke Bailout

Reversing position, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said Thursday the state should repeal House Bill 6 in light of the federal bribery charges against House Speaker Larry Householder (R), who pushed the bill through the legislature last year.

DeWine called for Householder’s resignation Tuesday after the speaker and four others were accused of taking $61 million in bribes from FirstEnergy to win passage of the legislation, which included subsidies for the Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants. (See related story, Feds: FE Paid $61M in Bribes to Win Nuke Subsidy.) But DeWine had said Wednesday that the law, which he signed last July, should remain intact to save the nuclear plants’ jobs and carbon-free power.

During his televised coronavirus briefing Thursday, however, he said the legislation should be reversed. “While the policy in my opinion is good, the process by which it was created stinks. It’s terrible; it’s not acceptable,” DeWine said, calling for the bill to be “repealed and replaced through an open process.”

Republican state Reps. Mark Romanchuk and Laura Lanese and Democratic Reps. Mike Skindell and Michael J. O’Brien have announced plans to introduce repeal bills. All four had opposed H.B. 6 last year. Environmental groups also called for its repeal.

Ohio FirstEnergy Nuke Bailout — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine | *Ohio Governor’s Office*

But with DeWine continuing to support the bill, chances of a repeal had appeared slim. Republicans control both the House of Representatives and Senate by a supermajority. H.B. 6 passed the House 51-38, with 10 Democrats joining 41 Republicans.

The law will charge all Ohio electricity customers a monthly fee ranging from 85 cents for residential customers to $2,400 for large industrial plants from 2021 until 2027. Although Perry and Davis-Besse are the main beneficiaries, the law also subsidized coal plants in Ohio and Indiana.

In an 81-page affidavit, federal officials accused FirstEnergy of paying $61 million in bribes and “dark money” campaign contributions to elect Householder and allies who pushed the $1.5 billion in subsidies into law.

FirstEnergy’s merchant unit, FirstEnergy Solutions, the owner of the nuclear plants, emerged from bankruptcy in February as a new company, Energy Harbor. But the utility’s CEO, Charles Jones, and others could face legal jeopardy for their alleged roles in the scheme. The government said the CEO of “Company A” — as FirstEnergy was referred to in the document — was in regular contact with Householder during the time the company was making secret payments.

DeWine opened his press conference Thursday saying he had been “struggling to process” news of the scandal. “It takes a while to really get it,” he said. “The most important thing is that the public has confidence in the process.”

According to Cleveland.com, FirstEnergy’s political action committee donated more than $25,000 to DeWine’s 2018 campaign for governor and $20,000 to his transition fund after he was elected. FirstEnergy executives individually gave DeWine’s gubernatorial campaign at least $27,000, it said.

Although FirstEnergy no longer owns the nuclear plants, its stockholders have been punished in the three days since the scandal broke. FirstEnergy shares closed Thursday at $27.40, a 34% drop since opening trading Tuesday. Energy Harbor, which trades over the counter, closed at $22.50/share, a drop of 31% since Tuesday.

July 24, 2020

CAISO Adopts Co-located Resources Plan

The CAISO Board of Governors unanimously adopted the first of two proposals Wednesday intended to allow co-located and hybrid resources, such as solar panels coupled with battery storage, to connect to the grid more seamlessly.

The proposals, part of the ISO’s hybrid resources initiative, were fast-tracked to speed the addition of storage at existing interconnection points. CAISO needs the new capacity to help head off a projected shortfall next summer caused by the retirement of aging natural gas plants and the inability of solar to meet evening peak demand without storage. (See CAISO Briefs Western EIM on Hybrid Resources.)

In response to the anticipated shortfall, the California Public Utilities Commission required load-serving entities under its jurisdiction to procure 3,300 MW of capacity by 2023. Some LSEs proposed integrating co-located resources into the market as soon as this fall, and CAISO moved quickly to adopt its co-located connection plan by the end of July to allow FERC 90 days to approve Tariff changes before the resources go live.

“There is an urgency around getting [policy to support] these co-located resources … because we start to see these resources coming on and interconnecting late this year,” Mark Rothleder, CAISO’s vice president for market policy and performance, told the board. “We need to get started with some minimum features around the point of interconnection … [and] we will continue to work on additional features that have been requested in future phases.”

The starting point includes new Tariff language governing resources that share a single point of interconnection but have separate resource IDs, allowing CAISO to dispatch them individually.

CAISO Resources Plan — | *174 Power Global*

CAISO executives decided to implement the co-located plan first because it involves more familiar procedures. The hybrid resources plan — allowing solar and storage to be dispatched as a single unit — could prove trickier, they said.

“The co-located model allows for the underlying resources to be modeled in a manner similar to existing resources today but requires the ISO market to manage a constraint at the point of interconnection to ensure that the combination of resources does not receive market instructions beyond the interconnection limit,” Rothleder wrote in his memo to the board.

The board will take up the hybrid resources plan this fall. CAISO needs additional time to develop a proposal that will let it deal with situations in which intermittent resources such as wind and solar are offline because of weather conditions, while the storage component keeps operating, Rothleder said.

“Enabling hybrid resources requires several new features for the resource operator to communicate to the ISO when portions of the generating facility are unavailable because of deviations in the variable output component of the hybrid resource,” he wrote.

The co-located resources plan is slated to take effect this fall. The hybrid resources component is scheduled to be brought before the board in November and implemented one year later.

Some stakeholders have expressed concern that CAISO is moving too fast to bring new storage online, but others have said the speed is warranted by the impending shortfall and the number of projects lined up.

CAISO’s interconnection queue contains about 24 GW of mixed-generation projects, including 20 GW of storage projects. Much of the storage is proposed for sites where solar arrays and wind farms already operate.

“Developers are adding storage to existing sites because adding resources at these locations can be done more quickly and at a lower cost than establishing new interconnections,” Rothleder said. “Lower costs are achieved due to the existing infrastructure, such as step-up transformer equipment that is already a part of the existing facility.”

In addition, he said, “siting at existing facilities takes less time to go through the ISO’s interconnection process because the capacity addition can be considered through the material-modification process, rather than the process of siting a new facility, which includes additional analysis and approvals.”

The integration of hybrid resources is expected to be a major issue for CAISO and other organized markets, as battery storage paired with renewables plays an ever greater role.

FERC held a technical conference Thursday to discuss the issue. (See FERC, RTOs Need to Set Hyb rid Rules, Experts Say and FERC Sets Tech Conference on Hybrid R esources.)

July 24, 2020

Consultant Tells MISO Microcities are Wave of the Future

If one business consultant’s vision proves correct, MISO stakeholders learned Tuesday, future neighborhoods will be self-contained developments with their own power sources.

Speaking at MISO’s July Informational Forum, Josh Hodge, CFO of Peoria, Ill.-based Dukes Business Consulting, said zero-carbon-footprint microcities independent of the grid are a possibility. He said the future could lead to vertical gardens on city blocks and parking garages with solar canopies and car-charging stations.

Hodge said microcities offer a sustainable model that can tackle the affordable housing crisis and cities’ “food deserts”: urban areas that lack easy access to fresh and nutritious food.

He said the developments would include hybrid, solar-and-storage resources. The net-zero electricity use could mean residents won’t have electricity bills.

“Massachusetts and California already require solar installations to be coupled with storage, and we expect to see this trend to spread,” Hodge said.

MISO microcities — EverForce Energy’s Magnetic Transducer Generator | *EverForce Energy*

EverForce Energy’s new Magnetic Transducer Generator stands to be a gamechanger for microcities, he said. Hodge said the technology can produce continuous energy without a fuel source, with one 5-MW generator providing uninterrupted, clean energy for roughly 1,000 homes for more than 20 years.

“And this is all with minimal maintenance and minimal impact on the environment,” he said.

Hodge said microcities can “supply and manage their own energy needs, and only connect to the grid to sell excess energy.”

“During emergencies, they could disconnect from the grid to protect themselves or the larger grid,” he said.

Hodge acknowledged microgrids will also cut the need for new generation and transmission and could draw customers away from utilities. While that may be bad news for utilities, he said some could make lemonade from lemons and embrace the increased reactive power and frequency and voltage regulation.

He also said new monitoring technologies on distribution systems could allow utilities to use microgrids’ stored supply when necessary.

July 24, 2020

MISO Members Make 1st Rules on Sectors

MISO’s Advisory Committee members this week adopted the first set of standards for creating and joining stakeholder sectors.

During a virtual meeting Wednesday, committee members adopted new rules that make MISO or its Board of Directors the mediator and final arbiter when a new entity is refused entry to a sector.

“This will effectively eliminate a sector’s ability to ‘veto’ an organization’s request to join that sector,” the AC said.

The rules also mean that sectors must establish their criteria for joining and post them on the public MISO website.

“Sectors are encouraged to be as inclusive as possible, which ideally ensures a new entity can find a fit within the existing set of sectors except in the rarest of circumstances,” the AC wrote.

The committee this spring created a miscellaneous Affiliate sector to serve as a catch-all for new, hard-to-pin-down members. The move prompted the board to charge the committee with making rules on how new members join sectors and how new sectors are created. (See Board OKs 11th MISO Sector, Orders Redesign.)

In its new rules, the AC called new sector creation a “last resort” and said that a group of organizations wishing to form a new sector must make their case in writing and boast documented participation in MISO’s stakeholder committees. While the committee can recommend a new sector’s creation, the board will have the final say.

MISO sector rules — North Dakota PSC Commissioner Julie Fedorchak | © *RTO Insider*

The AC also said that if a band of stakeholders wants to create a new sector, it should be at least 10 organizations strong. If not, the organizations may have to join the Affiliate sector.

North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak said the 10-organization threshold seems a little high, considering that most stakeholders would probably find a home in MISO’s existing 11 sectors.

“It seems that having that minimum threshold there is a little restricting,” Fedorchak said. In response, the committee added language giving the board the ability to override the 10-organization requirement.

The AC isn’t finished on sector restructuring. The committee will next discuss divvying up voting rights and how to consolidate like-minded sectors.

Advisory Tx Planning Principles?

Meanwhile, some AC members want to have a say in MISO’s effort to better coordinate its transmission planning processes.

The RTO currently uses separate planning processes to study transmission buildout for its generator interconnection queue and the reliability and economic projects under its annual Transmission Expansion Plan. Several committees are coming up with ideas to better link the planning studies and identify more cost-effective network upgrades that can meet multiple transmission needs. (See MISO Unveils 1st Proposal to Consolidate Tx Planning.)

The AC is debating whether it should draft principles to guide the committees’ discussions. Members of the Municipals Cooperatives and Transmission-Dependent Utilities sector asked the committee to draft coordinated transmission planning principles.

“We’re looking for something more than meeting notes,” DTE Energy’s Nick Griffin said.

Several committee members, however, are opposed to the idea, saying transmission planning isn’t in the committee’s bailiwick.

Environmental and Other Stakeholder Groups sector representative Natalie McIntire, of Clean Grid Alliance, said a set of transmission planning principles would constrain the committees’ work and “confuse the stakeholder process.” She also said it isn’t the AC’s place to shape MISO planning policy.

ITC Holdings’ Cynthia Crane, chair of the Planning Advisory Committee, also said a set of AC principles might muzzle some committee discussions.

Fedorchak said it would be a “pretty heavy lift” for sectors to reach consensus on consolidated planning.

Xcel Energy’s Carolyn Wetterlin, who also chairs MISO’s cost allocation stakeholder group, questioned what purpose the principles would serve and agreed that consensus would be hard to come by.

The AC will again discuss the principles during its August teleconference.

July 24, 2020

FERC OKs Negotiated Rates for Merchant Tx Line

FERC on Thursday approved SOO Green HVDC Link’s request to charge negotiated rates on its proposed 350-mile, 2,100-MW transmission line, which the developers hope to use to deliver renewable energy from upper MISO to Illinois and the PJM grid (ER20-1665).

In June, PJM stakeholders agreed to consider integrating HVDC converters as a new type of capacity resource in the RTO at SOO Green’s request. (See HVDC Initiative Endorsed by PJM Stakeholders.)

The SOO Green line is planned to run underground, primarily along existing rail rights of way from Mason City, Iowa, to Plano, Ill. Construction is expected to begin in early 2022 and be completed by 2024.

SOO Green is owned 80% by Copenhagen Infrastructure III, 10% by Jingoli Power Transmission and 10% by Siemens Energy. None of the owners or their affiliates owns any other transmission facilities, except for generation interconnection facilities, the developers said. (A Jingoli affiliate owns less than 10% of a small cogeneration facility in Michigan, and Siemens holds a minority interest in a combined cycle generation facility near Cleveland.)

The developer has hired London Economics International to design an open solicitation process and serve as its independent evaluator.

SOO Green transmission rates — | *SOO Green*

SOO Green hopes to attract generators, marketers, load-serving entities and end-users to obtaining transmission capacity rights, either as “anchor shippers” or later through an auction. The “registered participants” can seek commercial arrangements on their own or ask to be matched with others by the independent evaluator.

FERC evaluates negotiated rate applications based on four factors: the justness and reasonableness of the rates; the potential for undue discrimination; the potential for undue preference, including affiliate preference; and regional reliability and operational efficiency requirements. The commission said its review takes into account its open-access requirements, the Federal Power Act and the “financing realities faced by merchant transmission developers.”

No one filed interventions or protests in response to SOO Green’s application.

The commission concluded that the developers will bear the full market risk of the project and have no ability to erect barriers to entry or incentive to withhold capacity because they will turn over operational control of the line to either MISO or PJM, which will operate it under its Tariff.

“SOO Green states that while it is currently in discussions with both MISO and PJM about the many operational issues involving the project, it is unclear at this juncture which RTO will ultimately have operational control of the project,” FERC said.

The commission conditioned its approval on SOO Green’s submission of a compliance filing after the open solicitation demonstrating that the allocation process was fair and transparent and consistent with the commission’s 2013 policy statement on allocation of capacity on new merchant transmission projects (AD12-9, AD11-11).

July 24, 2020

FERC Accepts SPP, NIPCO Settlement

FERC on Wednesday accepted an uncontested settlement agreement between SPP and Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative (NIPCO) over the latter’s annual transmission revenue requirement, formula rate template and formula rate implementation protocols as a transmission-owning member of the RTO (ER15-2115).

The commission last year rejected a settlement filed by SPP, saying that, because it was contested, it couldn’t be approved under its guidelines and precedent set by a 1999 case. FERC in February then denied NIPCO’s rehearing request. (See “Co-ops Rebuffed in Settlement Rehearing Requests,” FERC Denies Rehearing in Z2 Remand Order.)

SPP NIPCO Settlement — Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative has agreed to an annual transmission revenue requirement with SPP. | *NIPCO*

NIPCO had argued that when TOs join regional grids, even indirect modifications to grandfathered agreements can trigger a threshold analysis under the Mobile-Sierra doctrine, which holds that negotiated, fixed-rate contracts are to be presumed just and reasonable under the Federal Power Act and cannot be revised by FERC without a finding that the public interest requires modification.

The commission said the Mobile-Sierra “public interest” presumption applies to an agreement only if the agreement has certain characteristics that justify the presumption.

In its latest order, FERC clarified the framework that would apply if it was required to determine the standard of review in a later challenge to the settlement by a third party or by the commission acting on its own authority.

SPP was given 30 days to file a compliance filing.