The 2 grid operators offering energy to the Midwestern U.S. are proposing to construct $1.7 billion value of latest transmission strains to bridge the “seam” between their networks. The transfer may unlock large quantities of fresh energy and probably function a template that different components of the nation can comply with to construct extra of the ability strains the U.S. wants to fulfill its clear power targets.
Final week, the Midcontinent Unbiased System Operator (MISO) and Southwest Energy Pool (SPP) filed plans with the Federal Power Regulatory Fee (FERC) in search of permission to undertake what SPP’s submitting describes as “an unprecedented, progressive, and proactive collaboration” between the 2 grid operators.
The so-called Joint Focused Interconnection Queue (JTIQ) course of has been within the works since 2020, when MISO and SPP pledged to group as much as determine transmission tasks that would carry worth to prospects alongside the border separating the 2 grid operators’ territories.
That border stretches from Canada to Louisiana and passes via the Nice 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.
However lots 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 programs throughout the a part of their border highlighted in yellow on the map under, may assist ease interconnection for 28 to 53 gigawatts’ value of tasks deliberate within the area, in response to a joint presentation from the 2 grid operators.
This hole in cross-border transmission capability is a well-known drawback. And a number of research performed by grid operators, authorities companies, universities, and impartial analysts have proven that the price of constructing new energy strains to shut that hole could be greater than paid for by their long-term worth to the grid: particularly their capacity to chop congestion and allow extra low-cost, clear power to return on-line.
But regardless of their clear advantages, interregional transmission tasks have struggled to get off the bottom lately. MISO, SPP, and the Electrical energy Reliability Council of Texas, that state’s grid operator, undertook a collection of collaborative grid growth tasks within the 2000s and early 2010s. However since then, large-scale grid growth has slowed dramatically. The gaps have been stuffed by smaller-scale upgrades and expansions inside utility service territories — a easier however far costlier method 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
Issues get sophisticated shortly for proposed transmission strains that span a number of grid operators. That’s as a result of these tasks need to navigate what power analysts name the “triple hurdle” of interregional grid planning.
The primary 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 vital breakthrough in merging these separate processes right into a unified strategy, stated Theodore Paradise, an power, infrastructure, and assets associate at regulation agency Okay&L Gates.
The 2 grid operators “started to determine coordinated transmission efforts that would interconnect extra era and do it in a cheaper method than efforts by both of the 2 grid operators appearing 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 Methods. He famous that the 5 transmission tasks proposed on this first spherical are undersized in contrast with what’s not solely potential but in addition essential to get extra low-cost, clear power constructed.
This primary 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. As a substitute, because the SPP submitting to FERC notes, power venture builders “can have price duty for JTIQ Upgrades within the SPP and/or MISO footprints.”
“Quite a lot of turbines are involved that masses in each areas profit from this transmission, but they don’t seem to be sharing within the prices,” Gramlich stated. “That isn’t a mannequin for future interregional planning efforts.”
Priming the pump for interregional transmission planning
In reality, it’s doubtless that plans for this primary spherical of tasks wouldn’t have been in a position to transfer ahead if not for the contribution of tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from the federal authorities, Gramlich stated, which decreased the share of prices that venture builders must take on.
In October 2023, DOE issued $3.5 billion in grid grants to tasks throughout the nation. One of many largest single grants was for $464 million to the Minnesota Division of Commerce to assist increase the JTIQ work, backed by the promise of $1.3 billion in cost-sharing contributions from individuals.
“The DOE cash has been essential to get so far,” Gramlich stated. “Extra DOE actions like this in additional areas may help stimulate the kind of giant interregional transmission we want.”
Research from the U.S. Division of Power, the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, and Princeton College have proven the advantages of constructing extra transmission strains connecting distant areas of the nation. These embrace easing congestion prices created by bottlenecks that block cheaper wind and solar energy from coming on-line and decreasing the chance of blackouts by sharing energy between areas that are inclined to expertise totally different climate.
Lengthy-range transmission can be key to fixing the local weather disaster by increasing the capability to construct extra clear energy. Throughout the nation, wait occasions for tasks that might add hundreds of gigawatts to the grid now stretch a mean of three and a half years or longer, in response to information from the U.S. Division of Power’s Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory.
In accordance with MISO and SPP’s joint presentation, builders are in search of to interconnect about 350 gigawatts’ value of power to MISO’s grid, and 84 gigawatts to SPP’s — nearly all of those proposed energy vegetation are wind, photo voltaic, and battery installations. However LBNL information signifies that much more tasks in MISO’s and SPP’s queues have been withdrawn than have been efficiently interconnected over the previous a number of years.
Even when interconnection tasks are authorized, they need to usually pay hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in grid improve prices in an effort to allow their energy to stream throughout overburdened U.S. transmission grids.
FERC this 12 months issued a regional transmission order that requires grid operators and utilities to discover long-range grid planning with these advantages in thoughts. Regional transmission buildouts, comparable to MISO’s multibillion-dollar long-range transmission plan, at the moment are beginning to occur after a decade of little motion.
However JITQ is outpacing FERC on interregional transmission coverage so far, Okay&L Gates’ Paradise famous. In reality, “the sensible resolution exploration moved ahead in a house the place the principles that allowed for it have been but to be authorized,” he wrote.
Different grid operators are beginning to discover interregional planning. Earlier this 12 months, MISO and PJM, the grid operator managing planning and power markets for a area that features 13 states from Illinois to Virginia in addition to Washington D.C., launched a course of meant to “interact in joint transmission evaluation and coordinated modeling” for his or her joint wants.
A lot work stays to be achieved earlier than MISO and SPP’s JTIQ plans can bear fruit. First, FERC should evaluation and approve the proposed adjustments to the 2 grid operators’ tariffs — the trade time period for the principles beneath which transmission grids and the power markets they permit meet all federal rules. If that occurs by the November 2024 timeline that the 2 grid operators have requested for, it will likely be adopted by years of labor on siting, allowing, and really constructing the 5 new strains.
However as a first-of-its-kind course of, JTIQ may assist lay the groundwork for extra such interregional efforts within the years to return, stated Gramlich of Grid Methods. “Not less than planners in each areas agreed on fashions, strategies, a configuration, and now a plan for price allocation,” he stated. “We’d like a lot extra of that work at a lot extra regional planning organizations.”
