SPP proposes uniform zonal planning criteria for local power-grid upgrades

摘要

Looking to eliminate confusion and inequity that exists in its current transmission planning process, Southwest Power Pool has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to sign off on a plan to establish uniform local planning criteria for all transmission owners within a pricing zone. FERC Order 890 mandates that SPP conduct a coordinated, open and transparent planning process at both the local and regional level. As such, the grid operator's tariff specifies how transmission owners' local plans are to be included in the SPP regional planning process. Currently, the SPP tariff allows zones with multiple transmission owners to have multiple, varied sets of applicable local planning criteria that SPP uses to evaluate the need for zonal reliability transmission upgrades. Those upgrades have their costs allocated to all load in the zone based on a load ratio share, regardless of which transmission owner's criteria resulted in construction of the upgrade.