SPP, MISO and Joint Parties File Transmission Usage Pact with FERC for Approval
A settlement agreement has been filed at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) around transmission capacity usage and associated compensation to be paid to neighboring transmission systems – among them, Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO); Southwest Power Pool (SPP); and joint parties, including Southern Company, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Associated Electric Cooperative (AECI), Louisville Gas and Electric (LG&E), Kentucky Utilities Company (KU) and PowerSouth Energy Cooperative.
If approved by FERC, the agreement provides the governance for continued shared use of the transmission system, in the interests of enabling more economical delivery of energy, while also providing compensation for that use.
The new pact solves a dispute that goes back to December 2013, when Entergy completed the integration of its Gulf Coast service area into MISO – and the Midwest system operator began making unauthorized use of the SPP transmission system, the Southwest regional network contends.
SPP argued in its complaint that MISO was violating their Joint Operating Agreement by sending power between the Midwest and South in excess of the 1,000-megawatt (MW) interconnection agreed to in Section 5.2 – and, thus, wass using SPP’s transmission system without reserving capacity or compensation.
Specifically, SPP asserts that “MISO does not have authority from the Commission or from the D.C. Circuit [Court] to place intentional, unscheduled flows on the SPP transmission system without an Open Access Same-Time Information System [OASIS] reservation and corresponding transmission service agreement.”
