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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--In December, the board of directors for the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) (Carmel, Indiana) will consider a staff recommendation that 24 transmission projects be constructed at a cost of about $21.8 billion measured in 2024 dollars. If approved by the board, the projects are scheduled to begin operating in the 2032-2034 period.
The recommended projects are located in MISO's Midwest Sub-region. Right now, the projects have no names. They stretch across Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota. The 24 projects total about 4,000 line-miles.
Click on the image at right to see a map of the transmission projects recommended by MISO staff.
They include 15 projects rated at 345 kilovolts (kV), and nine projects with 765 kV of capacity. The cost of each project ranges from a low of approximately $68 million to a high of about $2.3 billion. Several billion-dollar projects are included in the staff recommendation. Collectively, the projects are termed Tranche 2.1 of MISO's Long Range Transmission Planning (LRTP) portfolio.
Click on the image at right to see a table of the transmission projects recommended by MISO staff.
The cost and total mileage of these projects are about double what MISO's board approved in a prior round of long-term transmission planning.
In a September 25 post on the MISO blog, Michelle Wilson, a MISO communications advisor, said developing Tranche 2.1 took two years, over 40,000 hours of staff time, over 300 meetings and numerous discussions with stakeholders.
MISO staff put together this set of proposed transmission projects to help ensure long-term reliability of the future grid by increasing the reliability and efficiency of the MISO system while providing benefits in excess of costs, her blog added.
If the recommended projects are approved by the MISO board and constructed, she added, they will:
The MISO staff calculated nine separate types of costs and benefits these recommended projects could produce, including mitigation of reliability issues, avoided cost of new generation, decarbonization and congestion and fuel savings.
In dollar terms, the projects would generate between $51.7 billion and $117.9 billion of gross benefits over a 20-to-40-year lifespan when discounted to the present value. Subtracting the project costs that will be recovered in electric prices, between $28.5 billion and $34.7 billion, produced a net benefit of between $23.1 billion and $83.2 billion, staff calculated. The benefit-cost ratio of specific projects ranged from 1.8 to 2.5, staff said.
While some MISO members, including staff at state regulatory commissions, reportedly had some misgivings about the tranche of projects, MISO staff said this portfolio was a "least-regrets" avenue to achieving members' resource plans.
MISO staff also estimated that the projects in this portfolio would support nearly 116 gigawatts (GW) of new electric resources across the group's Midwest sub-region.
"One thing on which there is near-universal agreement is that the interconnection queues at MISO and other wholesale markets are too long, which has caused numerous potentially beneficial generation projects to be placed on hold or cancelled," commented Britt Burt, IIR's senior vice president of global research for the Electric Power industry. "Power generated at a power plant site is of little value if it can't be put onto the grid and delivered to where it is needed. But there is a cost to the nation's transmission grid buildout: all the free lunches are gone."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).
The recommended projects are located in MISO's Midwest Sub-region. Right now, the projects have no names. They stretch across Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota. The 24 projects total about 4,000 line-miles.
They include 15 projects rated at 345 kilovolts (kV), and nine projects with 765 kV of capacity. The cost of each project ranges from a low of approximately $68 million to a high of about $2.3 billion. Several billion-dollar projects are included in the staff recommendation. Collectively, the projects are termed Tranche 2.1 of MISO's Long Range Transmission Planning (LRTP) portfolio.
The cost and total mileage of these projects are about double what MISO's board approved in a prior round of long-term transmission planning.
In a September 25 post on the MISO blog, Michelle Wilson, a MISO communications advisor, said developing Tranche 2.1 took two years, over 40,000 hours of staff time, over 300 meetings and numerous discussions with stakeholders.
MISO staff put together this set of proposed transmission projects to help ensure long-term reliability of the future grid by increasing the reliability and efficiency of the MISO system while providing benefits in excess of costs, her blog added.
If the recommended projects are approved by the MISO board and constructed, she added, they will:
- Create a 765-kV transmission backbone to support high system transfers under generation and weather patterns
- Resolve thermal and voltage violations throughout MISO's Midwest Sub-region
- Help address wide area congestion and reduce economic price separation
- Enable significant new generation to support MISO member plans and goals
The MISO staff calculated nine separate types of costs and benefits these recommended projects could produce, including mitigation of reliability issues, avoided cost of new generation, decarbonization and congestion and fuel savings.
In dollar terms, the projects would generate between $51.7 billion and $117.9 billion of gross benefits over a 20-to-40-year lifespan when discounted to the present value. Subtracting the project costs that will be recovered in electric prices, between $28.5 billion and $34.7 billion, produced a net benefit of between $23.1 billion and $83.2 billion, staff calculated. The benefit-cost ratio of specific projects ranged from 1.8 to 2.5, staff said.
While some MISO members, including staff at state regulatory commissions, reportedly had some misgivings about the tranche of projects, MISO staff said this portfolio was a "least-regrets" avenue to achieving members' resource plans.
MISO staff also estimated that the projects in this portfolio would support nearly 116 gigawatts (GW) of new electric resources across the group's Midwest sub-region.
"One thing on which there is near-universal agreement is that the interconnection queues at MISO and other wholesale markets are too long, which has caused numerous potentially beneficial generation projects to be placed on hold or cancelled," commented Britt Burt, IIR's senior vice president of global research for the Electric Power industry. "Power generated at a power plant site is of little value if it can't be put onto the grid and delivered to where it is needed. But there is a cost to the nation's transmission grid buildout: all the free lunches are gone."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).
