Bonneville Power Administration Current Transmission Perspectives

Transcription

1 Bonneville Power Administration Current Transmission Perspectives WSCC Operating Committee September 26, 2011 Lauren Nichols-Kinas 1

2 BPA: A Brief Description Bonneville Power Administration is a non-jurisdictional power marketing agency under the Department of Energy. It is dedicated to creating and delivering the best value for our customers and constituents. BPA has over 15,000 circuit miles of transmission in the Northwest in a service area of approximately 300,000 square miles. It serves over 400 customers as a wholesale provider of power. BPA does the majority of its long-term transmission business through its Network Open Seasons (NOS). NOS is a process in which BPA - Determines what transmission requests its customers are currently willing to commit to, - Undertakes a cluster study to determine what additional infrastructure would be needed (if any) to enable that service, and - Makes a rolled-in rates determination regarding the needed infrastructure - BPA currently has 3,883 MW of wind generation interconnected to its system in our BA, and 15,062 MW of wind in its generation interconnection queue 2

3 Transmission Policy Initiatives Precedent Transmission Service Agreement Reform Network Open Season Reform Generation Interconnection Queue Reform BPA Open Access Transmission Tariff Review Conditional Firm Transmission NT Transmission 3

4 Precedent Transmission Service Agreement Reform BPA is exploring whether it will create a process to allow changes to customer s PTSA commitments Customers have indicated a potential interest in terminating 2000 MW of PTSAs and modifying another 1000 MW of PTSAs BPA is working to determine what requirements and costs would be involved if it were to allow changes to PTSA commitments Any process must benefit all impacted customers and be fully transparent Key criteria for evaluation of benefit to all customers is rate impact Goal is to make a final determination by the end of December 4

5 Drivers Network Open Season Reform BPA has learned a great deal from three years of NOS The business climate has changed substantially since BPA first designed its NOS Issues for examination include: Length of the NOS cycle Cluster study assumptions Amount of Performance Assurance required to participate Specificity of POR/POD information Amount of security for any new infrastructure Deferral rights Relationship to NT service 5

6 Generator Interconnection Queue Reform Currently 124 requests totaling 20,335 MW in Interconnection Queue (15,062 MW Wind), with: c. 17,500 MW in the study process, of which c. 8,700 MW have draft or final FAS reports (final studies completed or pending) Interconnection for 2,256 MW presently in design & construction. Each study must assume all prior requests are interconnected and operating. This creates unreasonable assumptions as we complete more studies without prior requests being built. Low queue-entry and Study costs. Allows for speculative undeveloped requests and unpenalized queue stasis. FERC never considered NEPA in the LGIP of Order BPA s NEPA process can allow developers almost total schedule control. FERC pro-forma First Come-First Pay rules place the obligation for financing i major shared facilities on the earliest-queued request. This creates a barrier for moving requests from study into construction. It benefits later queued requests, but leads to queue immobility. 6

7 Generator Interconnection Queue Reform The following reform concepts have been benchmarked against reformed Queue Procedures developed by other major utilities and accepted by FERC, and customized to BPA s situation. Note that none of these proposed reforms has as yet been agreed to or approved. Single process: Combine LGIP and SGIP into a Unified Generator Interconnection Process (UGIP) with a fast-track process for low-impact projects. Clusters: Study electro-geographic Clusters on a regular cycle, possibly structured to mesh with NOS Cluster Studies. Milestones: Establish Milestones to identify developer commitment to viable projects. Parking Lot: Create a Parking Lot with rules for staying and exiting, to allow unready projects controlled conditions to complete their financing and/or permitting. Queue restacking: Restacking of priorities within clusters based on Parking Lot and Milestone rules - First ready/first served. Pro-rata Cost Allocation: Establish universal pro-rata cost sharing for multi-user facilities, with latecomer provisions fair to all. NEPA: Move site permitting obligation into Parking Lot and Milestone rules. Transition: Establish a Transition Plan grandfathering existing projects with advanced studies. 7

8 BPA OATT Review Issues BPA is currently focusing on developing an OATT that truly reflects how we do business A number of key OATT-related issues are in play in those discussions: Application Response Timelines Intertie Studies Last-in, First-Out curtailments (LIFO) Roll-over over limitations ATC/AFC Postings Evaluation of Modification of Existing Rights (Netting of Redirects) Resales Price Flexiblity/Financial Middleman Customer TSR information Priority Access 8

9 Conditional Firm (CF) Transmission CF is a form of Long-Term Firm Transmission Service where BPA has a certain number of hours each calendar year in which it can curtail the transmission reservation prior to curtailing firm customers (NERC priority 6-NN rather than 7- F) to solve reliability problems. The offers generally come with 400 hours per calendar year of CF curtailment rights. CF also has priority to any short-term firm transmission (determined four months prior to the month of delivery). BPA determines CF Inventory to bound the amount of CF it offers. It is developed based on load-duration duration curve data for the past 5-6years. The CF Inventory at a flow gate is defined as the capacity that goes unused 97% of the time during peak season HLH after taking into account historical OTC derates. Peak season is determined by the 2 months of maximum flow for each flowgate. BPA has offered 1210 MW of conditional firm of which 1060 was accepted. Over half of the accepted offers were for wind generators. To the best of our knowledge, the rest of the country has offered 900 MW of conditional firm. Of the 1060 MW accepted, 770 MW are currently taking service and the remainder is deferred. 9

10 Network Transmission Service 1. Proceeding with NITS on OASIS 2. In May, BPA transitioned from use of 7-F to 7-FN 3. Will be examining redispatch of non-federal resources in the coming year 4. BPA is working to refine the manner in which we meet our obligation to plan, construct, operate, and maintain our Transmission Systems to provide NT Customers service. Historically, BPA has assumed that all Network Load growth was served by the FCRPS or non-federal designated Resources. NT Customers are designating more non-federal resources for service to above high-water mark Network Loads. BPA s NT planning process will evolve to enable improved integration of nonfederal resources in transmission planning. We are working to update our model for determining the availability of capacity for the designation of non-federal resources. 10