Despite increasing costs and reliability concerns from new data centers and their grid infrastructure needs, proactive grid planning can help ensure the grid planned and built today allows people to access affordable and reliable power well into the future.
What might this look like in our region? Interregional transmission projects in our region would connect Midcontinent System Operator (MISO) and Southwest Power Pool (SPP), at the “seam” where their footprints meet across states (OK, AR, LA, TX). Interregional transmission like this provides many benefits for consumers and is good for affordability, grid reliability, and resilience. During Winter Storm Uri, connections between RTOs allowed power to flow to where it was urgently needed and helped keep the lights on. Limited connections between RTOs on the other hand, can restrict the amount of energy that could move between regions.
If we think of the electric grid like a highway system with ride-share surge pricing, building more highway lanes reduces traffic congestion and surge pricing by allowing more vehicles to serve customers across more lanes. A recent study by NationalGrid found that “interregional transmission delivers approximately three times the net customer value of building” local solutions on their own. In other words, such interregional projects can bypass building more expensive options like local power plants.
Every two years MISO and SPP conduct a Coordinated System Plan to consider reliability issues, economic issues, and transfer capability issues along the seam. The 2024-2025 study scope is focused on interregional planning at the southern seam of the RTO footprint, the first of its kind. Before this study, there had never been interregional transmission studies between these two southern regions.
Earlier this year, MISO and SPP shared initial draft project portfolios (a group of transmission projects) for the Coordinated System Plan. The initial portfolios, the Core and Core+ portfolios, both included transmission projects in Louisiana.
A recent study update recommended moving forward with a smaller set of projects, eliminating those in Louisiana because they failed to meet certain benefit considerations. However, MISO and SPP’s initial analysis considered a narrow set of benefits. The next step is for MISO and SPP to move to the business case analysis for the portfolios, which would incorporate two additional benefits: – Avoided Reliability Investment and resilience mitigation of extreme weather impacts, which are currently unaccounted for in the analysis.
The Alliance has urged MISO and SPP to conduct these business case analyses for all interregional projects in the Core and Core+ portfolios so decisionmakers can consider a wider set of ratepayer benefits before deciding the portfolios aren’t worth the investment. Using a narrow set of benefits creates an unrealistic perception that transmission investments provide limited cost savings to residents, which simply isn’t true. What is true is that if regulators never see this information, they can’t make informed decisions. Simply conducting the analysis doesn’t lock in spending, but not doing it locks out savings. We suggest that decision makers also consider the economic development, and environmental and public health benefits to consumers that also come from increased interregional transmission connections.
We have a unique window of time to make well-informed, intentional grid planning investments to build the grid of the 21st century. The planning choices we make today greatly impact affordability and reliability for decades to come. More interregional connections will help address current and future grid needs instead of relying on costly local solutions like building more fossil fuel dependent power plants. This window of time is closing because of the rapid industrialization buildout. It takes many years before a planned transmission line is built and in-service, so it is important to plan, and build well, now.
To do that, decisionmakers must ask the right questions and explore the most comprehensive set of benefits possible.
The MISO and SPP southern seam interregional planning opportunity should not be fumbled because only a narrow set of benefits was considered. The Alliance will continue to fight for comprehensive analyses that show just how impactful interregional connections can be.
