EGN NEWS DESK
The two grid operators offering energy to the Midwestern U.S. are proposing to construct $1.7 billion price of latest transmission traces to bridge the “seam” between their networks. The transfer may unlock large quantities of unpolluted energy and doubtlessly function a template that different elements of the nation can observe to construct extra of the facility traces the U.S. wants to fulfill its clear power objectives.
Last week, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) and Southwest Power Pool (SPP) filed plans with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) looking for permission to undertake what SPP’s submitting describes as “an unprecedented, modern, and proactive collaboration” between the 2 grid operators.
The so-called Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue (JTIQ) course of has been within the works since 2020, when MISO and SPP pledged to group as much as establish transmission tasks that might deliver worth to clients alongside the border separating the 2 grid operators’ territories.
That border stretches from Canada to Louisiana and passes by means of the Great Plains, the best a part of the nation for producing wind energy, in addition to the goal for an growing variety of photo voltaic farms.
But a lot of these tasks are languishing within the prolonged interconnection course of. The 5 new joint transmission tasks proposed as a part of JTIQ, which might join the 2 grid techniques throughout the a part of their border highlighted in yellow on the map beneath, may assist ease interconnection for 28 to 53 gigawatts’ price of tasks deliberate within the area, based on a joint presentation from the 2 grid operators.
This hole in cross-border transmission capability is a well-known downside. And a number of research carried out by grid operators, authorities companies, universities, and unbiased analysts have proven that the price of constructing new energy traces to shut that hole can be greater than paid for by their long-term worth to the grid: specifically their skill to chop congestion and allow extra low-cost, clear power to return on-line.
Yet regardless of their clear advantages, interregional transmission tasks have struggled to get off the bottom in recent times. MISO, SPP, and the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, that state’s grid operator, undertook a collection of collaborative grid enlargement tasks within the 2000s and early 2010s. But since then, large-scale grid enlargement has slowed dramatically. The gaps have been crammed by smaller-scale upgrades and expansions inside utility service territories — a easier however far costlier manner of constructing the grid, and one which advantages particular person utilities greater than it does ratepayers or the general energy system.
Getting over the “triple hurdle” of interregional transmission planning
Things get sophisticated rapidly for proposed transmission traces that span a number of grid operators. That’s as a result of these tasks should navigate what power analysts name the “triple hurdle” of interregional grid planning.
The first two hurdles contain clearing the advanced negotiations between grid planners, transmission-owning utilities, state regulators, and different stakeholders about prices and advantages inside every separate grid operator. The third hurdle is endeavor an much more arduous negotiation for coordinated transmission planning and cost-sharing between these two grid operators.
MISO and SPP’s new JTIQ tariff construction represents a important breakthrough in merging these separate processes right into a unified strategy, stated Theodore Paradise, an power, infrastructure, and assets accomplice at legislation agency Ok&L Gates.
The two grid operators “started to establish coordinated transmission efforts that might interconnect extra era and do it in a cheaper manner than efforts by both of the 2 grid operators performing alone,” he wrote in an e-mail to Canary Media.
That’s to not say that the construction MISO and SPP have created is good, stated Rob Gramlich, president of consultancy Grid Strategies. He famous that the 5 transmission tasks proposed on this first spherical are undersized in contrast with what’s not solely potential but additionally essential to get extra low-cost, clear power constructed.
This first spherical of tasks additionally isn’t but taking up the problem of asking the utilities inside every grid operator to pay a share of the price of the grid tasks proposed, Gramlich stated in an e-mail to Canary Media. Instead, because the SPP submitting to FERC notes, power mission builders “could have price duty for JTIQ Upgrades within the SPP and/or MISO footprints.”
