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Securing interconnection and transmission rights and completing related upgrades is often the longest lead-time item in an electric generator’s development timeline. At the same time, many potential new power plants are being developed and vying for access to the electric transmission grid. The policy of most grid operators is to address interconnection requests on a “first come first served” basis. As a result, developers/interconnection customers are incentivized to submit their interconnection requests as early in the development process as possible in order to save their projects’ place in line. Over the last two years, Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) experienced record-high interconnection requests, and yet nearly 80% of these submissions ultimately were withdrawn prior to commercial operation of the project. MISO attributed this trend to developers submitting multiple requests for the same proposed project to test (and quickly withdraw) multiple interconnection concepts, many of which the developers knew they were not going to support through the entire queue process.

In an effort to reduce the number of requests in its interconnection queue that will ultimately be withdrawn, MISO requested that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) approve revisions to MISO’s interconnection request procedures related to milestone payments and site control requirements, which revisions would place substantially higher hurdles to a potential new power plant joining MISO’s generator interconnection queue. In Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc., 166 F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,187 (2019), FERC rejected MISO’s request, but FERC’s ruling leaves open the possibility that it might approve a similar set of heightened requirements, so long as MISO makes modifications to its proposal to account for interconnection customers that might be disproportionately disadvantaged.
Continue Reading FERC Rejects MISO’s Proposed Restrictions on Joining the Development Queue