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November 18, 2024

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ISO-NE Study Lays Out Challenges of Deep Decarbonization

Deep decarbonization of the New England grid will pose major challenges related to resource adequacy and market administration, ISO-NE concluded in the final report of its Economic Planning for the Clean Energy Transition (EPCET) study, released Oct. 24.

The RTO emphasized the importance of developing dispatchable zero-carbon resources to ensure reliability during extended periods of low wind and solar generation, and said new mechanisms likely will be needed to support dispatchable resources that run only in extreme scenarios.

ISO-NE previously outlined its key findings at its Planning Advisory Committee in August, when it told stakeholders it plans to consider “future market rule enhancements to support the ongoing reliability and economy of the region’s grid.” (See ISO-NE: New Mechanisms May be Needed to Ensure Future Grid Reliability.)

One of the main issues New England will face as it approaches full decarbonization is increasing variability of both demand and supply, with electrified heating and intermittent renewables both highly impacted by extreme weather events, ISO-NE wrote.

“The magnitude of the annual peak will vary dramatically from one year to the next, depending on how cold or how mild a winter the region sees,” ISO-NE wrote. “As a result, some resources needed to maintain reliability during the harshest conditions may only run once every few years.”

Without significant dispatchable resources, decarbonization will require a significant overbuild of wind, solar and batteries, which would come at a significant cost to consumers and have a large land-use impact, ISO-NE said.

The RTO estimated the region would need to add a staggering 97 GW of renewable capacity by 2050 to meet state goals, equating to an average annual addition of 1,293 MW of offshore wind, 268 MW of onshore wind, 955 MW of solar and 952 MW of batteries.

As the proliferation of renewables eliminates power system emissions from increasing amounts of the year — first in the spring and fall seasons, followed by the summer and eventually the winter — the value of new renewables will decrease, the modeling found.

“Fundamentally, as decarbonization accelerates, but remains highly correlated with the seasons, zero-carbon resource additions will produce surplus energy for increasing periods of time, and their cost per MWh will rise,” ISO-NE said.

The declining value of additional renewables will correspond with the increasing need for dispatchable resources and long-duration storage, ISO-NE said. The RTO found 100-hour batteries — such as those planned for development in Maine — will become particularly valuable as the region approaches 2050.

“However, even with a significant penetration of 100-hour batteries, the later years of this sensitivity still experience stretches of time when 100-hour batteries become depleted and significant fuel-secure dispatchable generation is needed to satisfy demand,” ISO-NE said.

To address these gaps, ISO-NE highlighted low-carbon fuels such as synthetic natural gas (SNG), clean hydrogen and renewable diesel, as well as small modular reactors (SMRs), as potential options.

The RTO specifically modeled SNG, noting that it could make use of the existing gas transmission network, while hydrogen likely would require significant amounts of new storage and transportation infrastructure.

It found that including 19,637 MW of SNG resources “achieves the states’ 2050 decarbonization targets while requiring 37% less new renewable capacity,” with high SNG fuel costs offset by the diminished need to overbuild renewables.

ISO-NE also modeled the effects of including SMRs, finding that “a renewable-dominant build-out that also includes 15.1 GW of SMRs achieves the states’ 2050 decarbonization targets while requiring 57% less new renewable capacity.”

The RTO emphasized that cost projections for SMRs remain highly uncertain, but estimated the inclusion of SMRs could reduce overall capital costs by 33% relative to the base case, and said the SMR case still outperformed the base case when the model doubled the SMR cost assumption.

Projected tons of carbon per day | ISO-NE

The report did not include a focus on how increased interregional transmission could affect the system. Multiple studies have found increased transmission between Québec and New England to reduce the cost of deep decarbonization in the Northeast by enabling Québec’s hydroelectric resources to balance out intermittent renewables. (See Québec, New England See Shifting Role for Canadian Hydropower.)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have found that increased bi-directional transmission between the U.S. and Canada would cut overall decarbonization costs by reducing the need to overbuild renewables. The researchers estimated that 4,000 MW of additional transmission between New England and Québec would reduce the overall costs of full decarbonization by 17-28%.

ISO-NE also noted that increased demand flexibility, which has been a top priority for consumer and climate advocates in the region, likely would not provide significant benefits during extended winter periods of low wind generation.

“While EV charging or heating could be delayed by a few hours, heating in particular cannot be delayed for longer time periods,” ISO-NE wrote.

Minimum Load Concerns

The RTO also noted the proliferation of behind-the-meter solar could create minimum-load issues for resources that are not able to quickly ramp down their production.

“All weather years in the modeled 2032 system experience days in which the net load falls below this threshold,” ISO-NE found.

It noted that flexible load — such as demand from electric vehicle charging — could be incentivized to alleviate these issues, or the region could increase its exports if other regions are not facing similar conditions.

Market Challenges

Beyond the technical challenges of developing adequate dispatchable zero-carbon resources to support system reliability, significant changes to the current market structures likely will be needed to support these resources, ISO-NE said.

While the energy market currently is ISO-NE’s largest market “by a large margin,” RTO projects overall revenue from the capacity market and from state power purchase agreements (PPAs) to surpass the energy market by 2035. Meanwhile, the proliferation of resources with PPAs — which often still can profit when bidding negative prices into the energy market — could threaten the viability of baseload resources that lack PPAs.

“Baseload nuclear resources are at particular risk of exposure to periods of negative [locational marginal prices], since they cannot increase or decrease their output quickly,” ISO-NE said.

Meanwhile, dispatchable resources needed to ensure reliability may not be used at all within a given year, putting more pressure on the capacity market to provide them with the necessary revenue. ISO-NE officials previously expressed apprehension about relying too heavily on the capacity market, which frequently is subject to intense stakeholder debates.

“Current market rules and other revenue structures may not scale well in a renewable-heavy grid, and the ISO is exploring alternate market structures within its jurisdiction,” ISO-NE wrote.

ISO-NE CEO Gordon van Welie has frequently expressed his support for developing a price on carbon within the wholesale markets but has said this would require full support from all six New England states. The EPCET study noted that zero-carbon dispatchable resources likely would need a price on carbon, or some other incentive, to compete economically with fossil alternatives.

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WINDPOWER: Industry Puts on Game Face as Election Nears

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The 2024 edition of the American Clean Power Association’s WINDPOWER conference was a celebration of achievement by the U.S. offshore wind industry and a recognition of the hurdles it still must cross. 

While the regulatory regime facing offshore wind continues to streamline itself, and while the number of turbines in U.S. waters grows almost weekly, important financial and technical challenges remain. 

There is also the small matter of the presidential election. Speakers at the microphone Oct. 29 seldom spoke the name “Trump,” but the possibility of the avowed wind turbine hater returning to power clearly was on the minds of the crowd at the Atlantic City Convention Center. 

All 10 of the federally approved offshore wind farm plans in U.S. waters have been greenlighted by federal regulators after Trump left office in 2021. He has made various threats and promises to take counteraction as soon as Day 1 of a second term. 

American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet | © RTO Insider LLC 

American Clean Power CEO Jason Grumet said there is no way to go but forward. He recounted the progress the industry has made even amid the global macroeconomic challenges of the past two years and framed it against the growing demand for electricity. 

“If we don’t actually have the power coming from renewable sources like offshore wind, the country’s going to have a choice. When we have a choice between clean power and polluting power, we choose clean power,” he said. 

Imagine, Grumet said, the community opposition that would emerge to keeping coal-fired plants online and building a network of natural gas pipelines to power new gas plants. 

The push to continue the progress offshore is necessary, he said, but not necessarily easy. 

Attendees at the conference were greeted as they arrived by a handful of the offshore wind foes who live along the New Jersey coast. 

“It’s hard work and it’s courage. Not easy to try something new, to have careers and communities and tens of billions of dollars resting on your ability to accomplish great things,” Grumet said. 

A recurring theme at the conference was winning hearts and minds to build support for offshore wind. A path to this, many speakers said, is demonstrated benefit. One of the driving factors behind offshore wind construction is benefiting the planet, but a key driver for some people is tangible benefits, generally financial. 

Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, said his membership initially was skeptical of clean energy jobs, given that many of the members worked in fossil industries and given the low wages and dearth of labor standards in green economy jobs. 

“Not that we were climate change deniers, but we were economic [realists],” he said. Unions were looking for a horizontal transition to clean energy, he said, and through the Biden administration’s policies and signature initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act, they got it. 

“So the fear factor is taken out of losing jobs in old industries.” 

Grumet, whose association represents more than 800 companies in the clean power sector, asked: “How are we doing?” 

“Nobody bats 100%,” McGarvey replied, “but for most people in the industry, they’re willing to engage, have a conversation.” 

He added that organized labor is a value-added proposition — its 1,600 U.S. training centers and 268,000 apprentices can play a key role in growing the skilled workforce that Grumet and many others in the clean energy sector say is greatly undersized. 

“There’s only one institution in the world that trains more people in hard skill sets than we do, and that’s the United States military,” McGarvey said. 

“Since we are in a rather dynamic moment in our political history,” Grumet said, “how do you think about the policy imperatives for the next four years?” 

“Everything depends on next Tuesday,” McGarvey said. A Harris win would be good news for the offshore wind industry, he explained; a Trump win would not. 

He said he first encountered Trump in Atlantic City of all places, back in the 1980s when helping build part of the casino company that helped shape the future president’s image. 

“You know, there are certain things that are stuck in his brain, and one of them is he really doesn’t like wind,” McGarvey said. 

Grumet sat down with Alicia Barton and Joris Veldhoven, CEOs respectively of Vineyard Offshore and Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind and asked for their take on the state of the industry. 

Vineyard Offshore CEO Alicia Barton speaks with American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet, left, and Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind CEO Joris Veldhoven at Offshore WINDPOWER 2024 on Oct. 29. | © RTO Insider LLC 

Barton pushed back on the tendency to tally failures and challenges. Instead, she pointed to progress made amid those headwinds: 10 projects have been approved, five have started construction and one is complete. 

“This is an industry that’s at a size and scale that is very different than we’ve ever been talking about before,” she said, adding, “I’ve been in this conference for a long time.” 

Many speakers at WINDPOWER 2024 emphasized the need for continued progress, for tangible results of all this planning and review, something that would demonstrate the value of offshore wind and help it reach self-sustaining scale as a U.S. industry. 

Veldhoven was among the first.  

“Make sure that we get projects built,” he said. “That is really what this industry needs, that is what states like New Jersey need at the moment, and I think that’s what we also can do. And we need to make sure, collectively as a group of developers, that enough projects mature so we actually get the steel in the water.” 

He added: “Those are some of the things that, per se, don’t really change depending on what happens next week, depending on regulatory frameworks — we need to make sure that we keep moving this industry forward.” 

This also builds political capital, Barton said. 

“Seeing the reality of projects getting constructed is the signal that, I think, important players across the board are looking at,” she said. 

Leaders of almost every state on the central and northern Atlantic coast have been critical to the industry gaining its foothold in U.S. waters and growing. Among the strongest supporters has been N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy (D), who welcomed conference attendees to the Garden State and cheered them on. 

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) | © RTO Insider LLC 

“The momentum here in Atlantic City is proof that investing in our nation’s clean energy future is not just about protecting the environment, which it is. It is also about pumping new life into our local economies,” Murphy said. 

More than 3,000 people work at companies engaged in offshore wind, he said, and the industry is projected to add more than 10,000 new jobs as it grows. 

Murphy played up his state’s growing cooperative efforts with New York. The two states have a bit of a friendly rivalry on their offshore wind goals — with New Jersey currently ahead at 11 GW by 2040 — but also recognize the need to join regionally to better expand the ecosystem needed to reach those goals. 

“We and New York share the same goal when it comes to offshore wind, and that is establishing our entire region as the epicenter for the offshore wind revolution,” he said. “And even more importantly, the fact is we need each other. Not just New York and New Jersey, but all of us here in this Convention Center. Building out an entirely new industry from whole cloth is no small feat.” 

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FERC Grants SPP Waiver for GI Queue Backlog

FERC has approved SPP’s waiver request to delay processing its 2024 generator interconnection study cluster as the RTO works to clear a backlog of GI requests that date back to 2018. 

The commission said Oct. 30 that the waiver request met its four criteria for approval in that SPP acted in good faith, the request is limited in scope, it remedies a concrete problem, and granting the waiver will not have undesirable effects, such as harm to third parties (ER24-2860). 

The waiver allows SPP to defer starting the definitive interconnection system impact study (DISIS) for the 2024 cluster until completing the first planned restudy of the DISIS-2023-001 cluster; extending the close of the 2024 DISIS queue cluster window from Oct. 31 to March 1, 2025; and opening the 2025 DISIS window until April 1, 2026, or the completion of the second decision point for the 2024 DISIS cluster. 

The grid operator told FERC that waiving the tariff provisions will enable it to focus its “limited resources” on processing the unprecedented number of interconnection requests already in the queue. It also said the waiver won’t delay executing GI agreements for pending or future clusters and will prevent lower-queued and future interconnection customers from expending time and resources considering study- and interconnection-cost-related information that could become moot due to restudies of higher-queued clusters. 

SPP began tackling the backlog in 2022 with the 2018 cluster. The queue contained 1,139 active requests for 221 GW of capacity at the time; it now has 395 active requests for 82 GW of capacity. The RTO has executed 48 new GIAs for 7.75 GW of capacity during the backlog work. (See “SPP Modifies GI Backlog Process,” SPP Markets & Operations Policy Committee Briefs: Oct. 15-16, 2024.) 

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WAPA Sierra Nevada Region to Advance with EDAM

The Western Area Power Administration said Oct. 30 that its Sierra Nevada (SN) region will pursue “final negotiations” to join CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM), notching another — if expected — victory for the ISO in its competition with SPP’s Markets+.

SN already participates in CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) through its membership in the Balancing Authority of Northern California (BANC).

BANC and its largest member, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, were last year among the first entities to announce their intent to pursue membership in the EDAM, after PacifiCorp. (See BANC Moving to Join CAISO’s EDAM.) BANC members Modesto Irrigation District and the cities of Redding and Roseville have since committed to joining the market.

A commitment from SN would clear the way for BANC to sign an EDAM implementation agreement with CAISO, a well-placed source told RTO Insider.

With WAPA’s approval, BANC expects to join the EDAM in the spring of 2027, the BA said in an Oct. 30 press release.

As part of federal power marketing administration (PMA) WAPA, SN sells low-cost power to irrigation districts, joint power agencies, cities and towns, public utility districts and other public entities from hydroelectric dams operated by the Bureau of Reclamation in the Central Valley Project, including Shasta (676 MW), Trinity (359 MW), New Melones (283 MW) and Folsom (199 MW).

“Working closely with the Balancing Authority of Northern California and our Sierra Nevada customers every step of the way, my staff and I look forward to engaging with CAISO through final negotiations to join this promising day-ahead market development,” WAPA Administrator Tracey LeBeau said in a separate release. “Our dedicated staff will continue to solidify our working partnerships with BANC, customers and CAISO and resolve technical implementation details while ensuring the best possible outcomes for our customers and other stakeholders.”

“We have concluded that participation in EDAM provides the best benefit for BANC and its WEIM participants while leveraging the investment we have made, and preserving the benefits we see, in WEIM,” BANC General Manager Jim Shetler said in a statement. “This decision is also consistent with BANC’s position that evolutionary development of markets in the West provides the most long-term durability. BANC looks forward to collaborating with WAPA-SN and our members as we move forward with EDAM implementation.”

Shetler is a member of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative’s Launch Committee, which for the past year has been developing a proposal to establish an independent “regional organization” (RO) to assume governance of CAISO’s WEIM and EDAM. SN’s membership in EDAM could have at least a minor impact on the governance of the proposed RO, given that the most recent Pathways proposal reserves one seat for PMAs on the RO’s Stakeholder Representatives Committee in either the WEIM or EDAM sectors. (See Revised Pathways Proposal Focuses on Sector Issues.)

In addition to marketing generation from the Central Valley Project Dams, SN also controls portions of the 500-kV Pacific Northwest-Pacific Southwest Intertie, which links the Bonneville Power Administration’s territory in Eastern Oregon with Los Angeles, and the 500-kV California-Oregon Transmission Project linking Southern Oregon with California’s Central Valley. Both lines are vital for moving energy back and forth between the Pacific Northwest and California and the Desert Southwest.

Altogether, the agency operates 884 miles of transmission ranging from 69 to 500 kV and 18 substations.

“Integrating WAPA’s Sierra Nevada region along with BANC into EDAM is a crucial step towards realizing the vision of a fully integrated regional market,” said Elliot Mainzer, president and CEO of CAISO. “Uniting resource-diverse utility partners across the West will enhance reliability, affordability and transmission connectivity. We are thrilled to see our valued partners taking these steps to solidify their position in this market at such a pivotal time.”

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CISA Releases International Strategic Plan

As the U.S. faces an increasingly “complex and geographically dispersed” threat landscape, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released its first International Strategic Plan aimed at strengthening the agency’s defense against foreign adversaries. 

The plan covers the years 2025/26, CISA said in a press release, and supports the agency’s first strategic plan published two years ago. CISA’s international strategic plan also is aligned with guidance in other U.S. strategy documents, such as the National Security Strategy, National Cybersecurity Strategy, U.S. International Cyberspace and Digital Policy Strategy and CISA Cybersecurity Strategic Plan. 

In the new plan, CISA said its aim is to “shape the international environment to reduce risk to critical dependencies and set conditions for success in cooperation, competition and conflict.” To support this aim, the agency laid out three overall goals: 

    • Bolster the resilience of foreign infrastructure on which the U.S. depends. 
    • Strengthen integrated cyber defense. 
    • Unify CISA’s coordination of international activities. 

Meeting the first goal will require working with domestic and international partners across a number of sectors spanning critical infrastructure, including pipelines, telecommunications and essential supply chains. CISA noted that U.S. and foreign infrastructure could be targeted by global terrorists and other malicious actors; therefore, the agency said it needs to build stronger relationships with international partners aligned with its interest, along with promoting standards, regulations and policies to advance its objectives. 

To strengthen global cyber defenses, CISA said it intends to grow its networks of trusted partners to provide greater visibility into, and respond to, cybersecurity vulnerabilities and threats from malicious actors. The agency will grow these relationships primarily through engagements between its computer security incident response teams (CSIRT) and those of its overseas counterparts. Engaging at the CSIRT level will “enable the exchange of actionable operational information” such as vulnerability alerts, victim notifications and attackers’ tactics. 

CISA also intends to “establish an environment where our partners can organically detect threats … and receive and exchange real-time risk reduction actions,” the agency said. It will do this through training and exercises, as well as providing its partners with information-sharing capabilities. Additionally, CISA will work to encourage the development of organic risk reduction capabilities. 

The agency’s third goal, unifying coordination of international activities, will require CISA’s Stakeholder Engagement Division to “establish a governance structure to advise on international matters and provide a clear articulation of [CISA’s] international priorities.” In addition, CISA will aim to improve its internal information sharing with the benefit of international lessons learned, and provide its workforce deployed overseas with special training. 

CISA said these actions will result in partnerships that can act as a “force multiplier” to enhance the effectiveness of its cybersecurity actions beyond what CISA can provide on its own. The agency said it sees the strategic plan as “a process, not simply a publication,” and it therefore will review progress toward its goals quarterly. 

CISA has a history of collaboration with foreign partners. Just this month, the agency joined Canadian and Australian cybersecurity agencies to issue a warning about an Iranian cyber offensive they said had been underway for more than a year, targeting critical infrastructure sectors including energy, government and information technology. (See Agencies Describe a Year of Iran Cyber Attacks.) 

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MISO IMM Makes Closing Arguments Against $21.8B Long-range Tx Plan

MISO Independent Market Monitor David Patton has made a final stand against the RTO’s $21.8 billion long-range transmission plan (LRTP) portfolio, asking MISO board members to order a postponement of the transmission portfolio and direct MISO to condense projects.

The appeal led multiple stakeholders to tell the MISO Board of Directors that the IMM should end his foray into MISO’s transmission planning and stick to supervising markets.

The showdown came as MISO advances its 2024 MISO Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP 24) to its board of directors.

This year, MISO and members will vote on more than the traditional MTEP lineup. The MTEP 24 umbrella also officially includes the $21.8 billion LRTP and the $1.65 billion Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue (JTIQ) portfolio in partnership with SPP.

MISO staff have called the $30 billion collection historic.

In September, MISO’s Jeremiah Doner said even MTEP 24’s $6.7 billion of traditional local spending is a “sizable amount of investment occurring.” The traditional MTEP 24 includes 459 projects, with total lines spanning 932 miles.

Traditional MTEP 24 spending is smaller than last year’s $9.2 billion. And while a good chunk of MTEP 23 was devoted to local reliability needs, this year’s investment is driven by age condition projects and load growth.

However, it’s the second LRTP portfolio that’s soaking up all of the attention this year.

“Let me say at the outset: this is probably the least satisfying exercise I’ve taken part in. I take no pleasure in being critical of such an important process,” Patton told board members during an Oct. 30 teleconference of the System Planning Committee of the MISO Board of Directors. He added that he thinks transmission expansion is essential.

“We believe there are portfolios of transmission investment that will be extremely beneficial … but this portfolio is not that portfolio,” Patton said.

Patton said the “costly” portfolio represents a present value of $2,600 per family in the Midwest.

“Hence, it is critical that the analysis be objective, accurate and unbiased,” he said.

Patton said though he’s been raising concerns with the second LRTP portfolio for two years, MISO hasn’t addressed his fault-findings. MISO and the IMM have disagreed publicly on the LRTP often over the past several months. (See MISO Affirms Commitment to $21.8B Long-range Tx Plan in Final Workshops and MISO, Monitor at Stalemate over Need for $21B Long-range Tx Plan.)

Patton said he wasn’t trying to thwart a second LRTP but that he wanted MISO to develop a leaner portfolio with downsized projects.

He said MISO’s two most flawed benefit metrics are the mitigation of reliability issues and the avoided construction of new capacity MISO estimates the portfolio will deliver on. He said if those two benefit calculations are downgraded to more reasonable outcomes, the benefit-to-cost ratio of the LRTP portfolio would be anywhere from 0.4 to 0.7:1.

MISO anticipates a benefit-to-cost ratio of between 1.8:1 and 3.5:1 over the first 20 years of the projects’ lives through reliability improvements, production costs, new capacity that won’t have to be built and environmental benefits.

Patton has said repeatedly MISO is incorrect in assuming reliability issues in the footprint would become so dire that MISO should use its $3,500/MWh value of lost load as an indicator of savings. He said a more reasonable notion is that MISO would take operational actions to address reliability risks.

Patton also said that MISO’s capacity expansion modeling is fundamentally flawed, favors intermittent resources and doesn’t consider what resources will be built and where if MISO doesn’t build the second LRTP portfolio. Patton said if MISO tested against a but-for scenario where there is no LTRP II, the footprint “rationally” would experience more capacity development in the eastern part of the footprint versus more remote, intermittent resources built in the western portion. He said any reasonable utility would choose to build deliverable megawatts without the transmission.

Patton likened MISO’s estimated benefits to trying to convince his wife to agree to buying him a new car instead of getting brake repairs performed on his existing car through the argument that his life would be at risk.

“That’s the logic you have to adopt: What is the alternative?” he said.

Planners Defend Portfolio

Senior Vice President of Planning and Operations Jennifer Curran said Patton and MISO philosophically disagree on the need for the LRTP portfolio.

“When we think about the resource expansion, we have a different idea about the goals of our customers and what our members are trying to achieve,” she said. “Where we agree is that we definitely need to do what’s best for our customers. That’s at the forefront.”

Curran said MISO requires backbone transmission and that waiting risks reliability and leaving the system expansion to less valuable, piecemeal transmission solutions.

“We cannot wait for the certainty of resource types to build transmission,” she said.

Curran said members’ stated goals provided the thrust for the portfolio. She stressed that MISO did not overstep its role as a transmission planner and not a resource planner.

The MISO IMM’s view of LRTP benefits in the second and fourth columns, which drastically reduce the portfolio’s benefits of avoided reliability risks and avoided new build capacity | Potomac Economics

“We are talking about the highway transmission and not the side streets,” she said.

Curran said MISO probably is being conservative in the reliability benefits and likely understating the help transmission would provide during extreme weather events. She said MISO stands ready to testify to the need for the transmission in front of state regulatory commissions.

Vice President of System Planning Aubrey Johnson said that the collection of 24 projects would create a backbone of mostly 765-kV transmission across the Midwest. He said MISO’s aims with the portfolio aren’t to address one NERC criteria at a time but “reliably enable” the resource planning its members have indicated. Johnson acknowledged that goal does shift the portfolio into “uncharted territory.”

Johnson noted that MISO planners made more than 500 adjustments to capacity expansion siting based on MISO members’ counsel.

Executive Director of Transmission Planning Laura Rauch said there are almost certainly additional benefits beyond those that MISO monetized in its business case, including more reliability and efficiency value and expanded transfer capability. Rauch said LRTP II will enable the sweeping flows that help keep the lights on during heat domes, derechos and ice storms.

MISO board members withheld their opinions on the LRTP and asked mostly clarifying questions on Patton’s criticisms and MISO’s process. They did not publicly address Patton’s appeal for a pause on the LRTP approval process.

“Is there a sense of, ‘don’t build and this [capacity] will evolve?’” board member Phyllis Currie asked of stakeholders’ attitudes across the 300-plus public meetings MISO held during the development of LRTP II. She said her question “strikes at the role of MISO” as a transmission planner and keeping out of resource planning.

Johnson said stakeholders generally were supportive of MISO’s direction on planning and confirmed to MISO that the proposed lines followed their burgeoning resource plans.

Board member Trip Doggett invoked a recent Grid Strategies report that placed MISO and CAISO at the top of regional planning efforts in the country, giving each a ‘B.’ Doggett asked what MISO should do to reach ‘A’ status. Curran said MISO’s grade boils down to the LRTP not yet extending to the MISO South region.

The System Planning Committee is set to hold a vote on whether to recommend MTEP 24 along with LRTP II at a Nov. 19 teleconference.

Chorus of Support, Some Detractors and Complaints that IMM has Overstepped

Most public comments after the IMM and MISO delivered their positions provided support for the LRTP, with multiple stakeholders telling MISO board members that the IMM shouldn’t be influencing transmission planning.

Michigan Public Service Commission staffer Erik Hanser said Patton is mistaken that “market forces alone” can fill the need for transmission planning.

Hanser also said Patton “bringing these issues up month after month” is not a good use of time for the Market Monitor, who he emphasized is not a transmission monitor. Hanser said he questioned how appropriate it was for the IMM to spend so much time and attention on an area outside of his market monitoring responsibilities.

Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Hwikwon Ham said MISO’s long-range transmission planning allows state jurisdictions to carry out their resource planning. He also said MISO’s comprehensive transmission planning saves ratepayers money over the long run.

American Transmission Co.’s Bob McKee said it’s inappropriate for the IMM to think his opinion on planning should override those of the stakeholder community. McKee invoked the LRTP as “exactly the type of long-range planning” that FERC is requiring RTOs to engage in per Order 1920.

McKee also said that LRTP II will go a long way in addressing the “new, unforecasted, historic, large-point loads” that are cropping up on the system and are requiring several out-of-cycle transmission projects.

Natalie McIntire, of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC Project, said the IMM simply seems opposed to top-down regional planning and said MISO is leading the industry in planning. She asked board members not to entertain the IMM’s requests.

WPPI Energy’s Steve Leovy, however, seconded the IMM’s ask for MISO to test the LRTP against a future case where the second LRTP portfolio doesn’t exist. He said the additional testing from MISO wouldn’t usurp the role of resource planning or infringe on states’ rights.

“Let’s be clear: The debate we are having today is not about methodology. It’s about ideology. And it’s being driven by Dr. Patton in ways that I believe are inappropriate for his position. I believe he has abandoned his independent voice,” Union of Concerned Scientists’ Sam Gomberg said.

MISO’s Aubrey Johnson | © RTO Insider LLC 

Gomberg said it’s a “huge red flag” that Patton presented analytics showing the LRTP falls below worthwhile investment without documentation detailing his methods. MISO and stakeholders have “repeatedly suffered through” presentations on Patton’s uncorroborated numbers, Gomberg said, while Patton at times “belittles” MISO’s and stakeholders’ perspectives.

“Throw out any number you like in a public setting as long as it’s big enough to catch attention, let the media sink their hooks into it and the headline on the front-page reads: ‘IMM Says MISO Transmission Plan isn’t Worth It’ while everyone else scrambles to explain after-the-fact why this number shouldn’t be trusted,” Gomberg told board members. “When this happens, it makes yours and every state regulator’s job harder because it colors your and regulators’ ability to do the proper, objective due diligence necessary to weigh the costs and benefits of these projects.”

Gomberg said the IMM’s actions are “at best negligent and at worst a deliberate attempt to undermine the process.” He said he “believes it’s past time” for the MISO Board of Directors to “clearly and publicly” define the IMM’s role in MISO transmission planning and hold him accountable to transparency standards and analytic rigor.

“The character assassination of Dr. Patton is really unfortunate,” North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak said. “There’s a lot of opportunity between doing nothing and spending $30 billion in transmission planning.”

Fedorchak said MISO should listen to independent, third-party critiques that its LRTP business case is overblown.

“With these benefits, you could justify building just about anything,” Fedorchak said, reminding board members that North Dakota doesn’t have clean energy goals and it’s unfair for the state to shoulder a portion of LRTP costs.

Kavita Maini, a consultant representing MISO industrial customers, also said she appreciated the IMM’s request to take a hard look at the LRTP.

“We need an independent voice, and we appreciate the IMM’s efforts,” Maini said.

But Google’s Tyler Huebner said MISO’s “effective, multi-value transmission planning” is vital and serves as proof that not all members in the end-use sector agree with one another.

Clean Grid Alliance’s David Sapper said board members should “strongly” consider Google’s support since the LRTP is rooted in a future view of the grid, implying that Google should know better than most what’s to come.

ITC’s Brian Drumm said MISO assembled the second LRTP portfolio with industry-tested practices and planning tools that are crucial to maintaining reliability as the clean energy transition and load growth knock on MISO’s door.

“Now is not the time for us to slow down,” he said, endorsing the LRTP.

Drumm also said Patton’s “is just one voice” among hundreds of stakeholders who contributed to the multiyear development of the LRTP.

Great River Energy’s Priti Patel said she likewise was lending support to LRTP II. She said Great River Energy independently tested the LRTP’s business case and found that proposed lines in Minnesota best meet technical needs while minimizing impacts to communities across GRE’s electricity cooperative.

“We see this is a significant and necessary step to maintaining future reliability,” Patel said.

Xcel Energy’s Drew Siebenaler encouraged MISO and its board to proceed with the LRTP as soon as possible.

“In my professional career, I’ve never encountered a stakeholder process that has had more hours and engagement as this,” Iowa Utilities Board Member Josh Byrnes said of the journey to the second LRTP portfolio.

Byrnes said though “not everyone got what they wanted,” the LRTP has struck a good balance in planning.

“I truly believe that doing nothing is probably not a good option for us,” Byrnes said.

System Planning Committee Chair and MISO board member Mark Johnson thanked stakeholders for their perspectives.

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FERC Grants ODEC Complaint on $18M Mischarge from FirstEnergy

FERC on Oct. 29 granted a complaint by Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC) filed against FirstEnergy and PJM alleging the utility overcharged it and asking for $18.6 million in refunds (EL24-121). 

FirstEnergy’s Potomac Edison bills ODEC’s load in its territory through PJM based on information the RTO gets from the utility. The complaint alleged that FirstEnergy overcharged ODEC from July 2022 through the end of 2023 by including the load of Front Royal, Va., in the calculations when the co-op does not serve that municipality. 

The utilities tried to work out the issue on their own, but FirstEnergy wanted to resettle the entire region because other utilities were undercharged, while ODEC wanted it taken care of bilaterally. FirstEnergy also wanted to pay ODEC only when it got money back from the other entities involved, but by the time the complaint was filed, it had not received any. 

ODEC said it did not consent to FirstEnergy imposing the condition that it must resettle with all suppliers prior to providing it with refunds, FERC said. 

The complaint asked FERC to find that ODEC was mischarged and that FirstEnergy failed to meet its obligation to timely effect a financial resettlement with PJM, and to direct repayment. 

FirstEnergy argued that it was taking the proper steps to fix the mischarges and was working with the rest of the impacted entities to resettle, pursuant to PJM’s rules for resettlements. The only reason ODEC did not get any refunds was that it declined to take partial payments as the resettlement of the zone was occurring, the company argued. 

ODEC said the rules do not require FirstEnergy to resettle the entire zone before paying back all that it owes the co-op. PJM agreed with this assessment in comments filed on the dispute. 

FERC agreed that ODEC was overbilled because of the inclusion of Front Royal’s load, which led to it paying more than it owed for energy, capacity and transmission charges. 

“FirstEnergy’s action in misattributing Front Royal’s load to ODEC was a violation of the filed rate,” FERC said. “Therefore, we grant the complaint and find that ODEC is entitled to reimbursement of the overcharges. … 

“Nothing in the record supports FirstEnergy’s assertion that resettlement is required before providing a refund to ODEC. Indeed, PJM states in its answer to FirstEnergy’s answer that the PJM tariff and PJM processes do not require that FirstEnergy first resettle the entire wholesale market in its zone before refunding ODEC.” 

Nothing in PJM’s rules applies to the situation in the complaint, so FERC said it was using its discretion to direct FirstEnergy to file a repayment plan to make ODEC whole plus interest within 60 days of the order’s issuance. FirstEnergy will have to discuss the plan with ODEC and indicate in that filing whether it has agreed on a plan with the co-op or explain why that did not happen. 

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California Labor, (Possibly) Public Power to Sponsor Pathways Legislation

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A representative of one of the staunchest opponents of past efforts to transform CAISO into an RTO said his labor union plans to sponsor the California legislation needed to implement the “Step 2” proposal of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative.

On top of that, another previous objector to CAISO “regionalization” — a coalition of California’s publicly owned utilities — signaled it might sign on as co-sponsor.

“I am very happy to say that we will be sponsoring the bill in the next California legislative session to implement the Pathways proposal for the CAISO and for the California utilities,” Marc Joseph, an attorney representing the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), said Oct. 30 during a panel discussion at the CAISO Stakeholder Symposium in Sacramento.

Joseph noted he’d sat on the stage at the same CAISO event eight years earlier to voice concern about the first of three attempts to regionalize the ISO through bills that would’ve transformed the California grid operator into an independent entity by eliminating the state’s role in appointing its Board of Governors.

“This would mean that all of the functions of the CAISO would be removed from California control with no idea what would happen to them, and no chance for California to go back if we didn’t like the outcome,” Joseph said. “The legislature was in effect being asked to mortgage the farm with nothing more than ‘trust us’ as collateral.”

That approach was “a particular problem” for California labor groups because the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) is “anchored” in the CAISO balancing authority area, requiring that a certain portion of new renewables be built in-state and directly interconnected to that BAA.

“If the CAISO became the RTO for the West, that could mean that the balancing authority area would be the entire West, and that would mean that the RPS structure would effectively be meaningless and most of the jobs for people in California would probably be exported to other states,” Joseph said.

The Pathways proposal is different, he said, because it proposes to create a new independent “regional organization” to govern rules for CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) and Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM) while leaving the ISO’s BAA intact, a point Joseph and other labor representatives have emphasized previously, including in front of California lawmakers. (See Pathways Initiative Releases ‘Step 2’ Proposal for Western ‘RO’ and California Labor Groups Affirm Support for Pathways Proposal.)

Heading off questions about the bill’s legislative author and its specific language, Joseph jokingly said: “Cool your jets. This is still October. It’s only been 30 days since the governor finished signing the bills from the last legislative session. We are ahead of schedule, and we’ll get to all of those things in due time.”

‘This is for Real’

When Joseph told Randy Howard, general manager of the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA), that IBEW planned to sponsor the Pathways bill, Howard said his first question was, “Who’s the author?”

“And I said, ‘I think we’d be interested in co-sponsoring,’ which is a big shift for us in public power,” Howard said during the same panel.

NCPA represents 16 publicly owned utilities (POUs) in California, which are responsible for scheduling about 12% of the energy delivered into CAISO. Howard said public power’s position on previous CAISO regionalization efforts largely aligned with that of labor.

“When we’ve looked at previous proposals related to an RTO — and the legislation, similar to [Joseph], we saw many more risks than we could identify benefits. And again, once you hand over the keys to the organization, you couldn’t take them back,” he said.

Howard said that, for public power, years of regional collaboration through CAISO’s WEIM eased utilities’ distrust stemming from the Western energy crisis of 2000/01. NCPA members prefer an “incremental” approach to developing a Western market, which the Pathways proposal continues to accommodate, he said.

As nonprofits, Howard said POUs are concerned primarily about maintaining reliability while keeping costs down. And while the publics would like to own all of their resources, that’s not practical, he said, and participation in a broader day-ahead market like EDAM would provide access to a greater pool of resources at a lower cost.

“And by having this more efficient market and the market platform, we should be able to continue to add these emission-free resources and do it in a way that we can share them across the West with each other, diversify greater and try to keep the rates more affordable for our ratepayers, because that’s what we think is the most important thing,” Howard said.

Panel moderator Kathleen Staks, executive director of Western Freedom and co-chair of the Pathways Launch Committee, remarked about the progress the initiative has made in the year since it was formally launched.

“I think it has really sort of sunk in for us, [and] for the audiences that we’ve been talking with, that this is very real. This is a real proposal, and now we’ve just made it even more real,” Staks said.

Speaking a week earlier on a panel at the fall joint meeting of the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation and Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body (CREPC-WIRAB), Staks said she was “cautiously optimistic” about passage of the Pathways bill.

Reached for comment on the floor of the symposium, Joseph told RTO Insider he sees “nothing uniquely challenging” about passing the Pathways bill compared with “any other substantial bill.”

“In fact, because there is such widespread support for it, I think there’s every reason for it to be successful,” he said. “The single most important fact is that the leading opponents to prior rounds — labor and POUs — are now potentially sponsoring,” he said.

Joseph confirmed the legislation will be introduced during the next legislative session, which begins in January.

And he reiterated the point made by Staks.

“The level of engagement is an indication that everybody recognizes this is for real.”

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EPA Announces Nearly $3B for Clean Port Equipment

EPA on Oct. 29 announced it will disburse $2.9 billion in grants to U.S. port authorities to purchase zero-emission equipment, vehicles and on-site electricity generators through its Clean Ports Program.

The agency said the funds would support the purchase of 1,500 units of cargo-handling equipment, 1,000 drayage trucks, 10 locomotives and 20 vessels, along with battery-electric and hydrogen vehicle charging and fueling infrastructure, and solar power generation. It estimates the equipment and infrastructure will prevent more than 3 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, 12,000 short tons of NOx and 200 short tons of PM2.5 in the first 10 years of operation.

EPA selected 55 state, city and county agencies across the continental U.S. and in Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Most are shipping ports along the coasts, but the awardees also included several agencies overseeing inland intermodal terminals, such as in Dallas and Salt Lake City.

While “ports are vital to the U.S. economy,” the agency said, “the port and freight equipment responsible for moving goods including trucks, locomotives, marine vessels, and cargo-handling equipment contribute to significant levels of diesel air pollution at and near port facilities. This pollution is especially harmful to nearby communities’ health and contributes to climate change.”

“Delivering cleaner technologies and resources to U.S. ports will slash harmful air and climate pollution while protecting people who work in and live nearby ports communities,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

The largest winners were Los Angeles and the Port of Virginia, which were granted more than $411 million and about $380 million, respectively. EPA said applicants “were evaluated in part on their workforce development efforts, to ensure that projects will expand access to high-quality jobs.”

The Maryland Port Administration and Department of Transportation received more than $147 million for equipment at the Port of Baltimore, where President Joe Biden spoke on Oct. 29 to celebrate the awards.

“For too long, [ports] have run on fossil fuels and aging infrastructure, putting workers at risk and exposing nearby communities to dangerous pollution,” the president said. “The new $3 billion in funding we’re delivering today will help ports all across America … strengthen supply chains, make American businesses more competitive and keep consumer prices down while slashing carbon pollution.”

Biden took the opportunity to praise state and federal efforts to clear the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and reopen the port. “We won’t stop until the new bridge is finished completely,” he said. “Finished, finished, finished. I call on Congress to fully fund it, this year!”

The president was joined by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, whom he said “may be the best governor in the country,” and the state’s U.S. senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, the latter of whom he called “Sen. Van Halen.”

“What the hell is his name? He’s new,” Biden joked after the gaffe.

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BOEM, DOD to Coordinate on Offshore Wind

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The U.S. Department of Defense and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management have reached a memorandum of understanding intended to improve the collaboration of offshore wind power development proposals. 

The move is intended to address one of the frustrations common to offshore wind development and countless other endeavors: the need to work across multiple government agencies that operate independently of one another, or sometimes even at cross purposes. 

While DOD is just one of many governmental entities, it exerts a particularly strong influence on decision-making. Offshore wind development has been paused indefinitely off parts of the Maryland and Virginia coastlines because of potential conflict with the heavy military activity there. 

BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein and Brendan Owens — assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment — formalized the agreement between their two agencies at the close of the first day of American Clean Power’s Offshore Windpower conference Oct. 29. 

Owens emphasized the commonality between the two agencies. 

“The other hat that I get to wear in the job that I have at DOD right now is chief sustainability officer,” he said. “So there’s a tremendous convergence of what the Biden administration is asking all of its federal agencies to do, and the work that you all are doing and the work that DOD is doing.” 

ACP CEO Jason Grumet spoke of the imperative of collaboration as developers try to unite disparate groups of stakeholders and the challenges that presents. 

“Anyone who has actually spent time in federal service knows that one of the most challenging collaborations is among federal agencies,” Grumet said. “One of the things that I think really has marked this administration has been a remarkable amount of coordination and collaboration in a whole-of-government understanding of what it’s going to take to manage and balance our energy and environmental needs.” 

Almost all power for DOD facilities comes from outside those facilities, Owens said, so the military has a direct interest in the grid from a mission capability standpoint. “If we can flex from one source to another, that gives us resilience for our mission, and that’s the reason that we view the deployment of offshore wind critically as something that needs to be accelerated.” 

But not, he said, at the expense of training and readiness. “So DOD and BOEM have worked together to identify … and avoid impacts to national security for offshore energy planning,” Owens said, “and this MOU codifies the way that we will do that going forward.” 

“The MOU helps to define and clarify roles and duties of both of our organizations in leasing and project planning processes,” Klein said. 

In a news release, BOEM said the MOU expands on a 1983 memorandum of agreement on their activities in the Outer Continental Shelf. 

The announcement flagged four key goals: 

    • find mutual solutions that support renewable energy in a manner compatible with essential military operations; 
    • collaborate as early as possible in the offshore wind leasing process; 
    • regularly communicate and exchange information at the staff and leadership levels; and 
    • determine what areas should be deferred from leasing to enable the performance of DOD activities on the OCS.