Dive Brief:
- The Midcontinent ISO has filed tariff changes with federal regulators that will allow it to recover costs for Multi-Value Projects that transport energy into PJM Interconnection, RTO Insider reports.
- Last month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) partially lifted restrictions on the MVP designation, saying PJM's need for power and abundant Midwestern wind supplies had convinced it to make a change.
- MVP payments were halted in 2013 over an appeals court's concerns of rate pancaking — when a wholesale power customer must pay each transmission owner a separate fee for power to pass through its system.
Dive Insight:
Three years ago FERC put restrictions on recovering MVP costs finding MISO benefits were all local, but in a July order said PJM's need for clean energy had changed things.
In its order, FERC noted the "development of large scale wind generation capable of serving both MISO’s and its neighbors’ energy policy requirements in the western areas of MISO," as evidence of growing benefits of transmission projects.
In 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit halted MVP payments, over concerns of rate pancaking along the seam between MISO and PJM. But given PJM's need for wind energy and MISO's need to built transmission to move it, FERC readdressed the issue last month.
"MVPs are not local; they support all uses of the system, including transmission on the system that is ultimately used to deliver to an external load," the commission determined.
RTO Insider reports MISO has filed to begin recovering costs, and requested the new rates be retroactive to July 13, the day of FERC's order.
