Mountain West Transmission Group WECC MIC Update October 17, 2017
Agenda Overview Mountain West Activities Mountain West Analyses Mountain West Next Steps 2
Mountain West Overview 3
What is the Mountain West Transmission Group? Mountain West is an informal collaboration of electricity providers that are working to develop strategies to adapt to a changing industry. Formed in early 2013 to evaluate a suite of options ranging from a common transmission tariff to Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) membership. Includes investor-owned utilities, municipal electricity providers, generation and transmission cooperatives, and federal power marketing administration projects. 4
Participating Transmission Owners* Basin Electric Power Cooperative (BEPC) Black Hills Energy s three electric utilities in Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming, subsidiaries of the Rapid City-based Black Hills Corp Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) Platte River Power Authority (PRPA) Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) Tri State Generation and Transmission Association (Tri State) Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) Loveland Area Projects (LAP) Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP) * Others may join after initial implementation. 5
Mountain West Transmission Footprint Mountain West Participants are a Subset of the WestConnect Planning Region and are Members of the Colorado Coordinated Planning Group (CCPG) 6
Mountain West Utilities 2015 Snapshot Transmission Owner Annual Transmission Revenue Requirement ($) 12-month Coincident Peak (MW) Annual Energy (MWH) Basin Electric Power Cooperative Westside 8,203,959 110 638,352 Cheyenne Light Fuel & Power 6,848,030 193 1,330,174 Black Hills Colorado Electric Utility 12,452,172 314 1,600,638 City of Colorado Springs Utilities 24,025,218 661 4,374,955 Common Use System (BEPC & BHC) 30,899,530 859 4,892,644 Platte River Power Authority 39,923,267 510 3,251,514 Western CRSP 69,097,743 1,424 5,185,539 Western LAP 65,198,148 710 2,534,139 Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association 117,460,625 1,634 12,607,330 Public Service Company of Colorado 220,662,842 5,680 33,024,691 DC-ties (4 ties in footprint) 18,000,000 710 * NA Total 612,771,534 12,104 69,890,856 *Combined capability of the DC-ties in the Mountain West footprint 7
Advantages of RTO Participation RTO serves as administrator of Regional Tariff o Single OASIS o De-pancaking of transmission charges o All load is network load o Single determination of Available Transfer Capacity (ATC)/Available Flowgate Capacity (AFC) RTO facilitates transmission planning and interconnection to avoid duplication of facility investments One point of contact for system interconnections Additional siting opportunities for new resources 8
Advantages of RTO Participation Independent operator of a centralized wholesale market with a Day-Ahead Market, Real-time Balancing Market, and Ancillary Services market o Optimizes the use of generation and transmission assets Consolidates Balancing Authorities into one Centralized unit commitment and generation dispatch Improved renewable integration RTO maintains a wide-area view and real-time situational awareness of the entire footprint to monitor and manage the reliability of the system 9
Mountain West Activities 10
What is the Scope of Mountain West s Activities? Mountain West is evaluating the potential benefits of participation in an existing RTO with a full market. If Mountain West joins an RTO, it would be under that RTO s existing governance, market, and tariff provisions.* * With tariff revisions to add the participants, incorporate specific enabling requirements of the parties and adapt governance to accommodate new participating states. 11
Significant Work to Date Strong cooperative effort Conceptual rate design and cost shift mitigation; despite multiple failed attempts at regional tariffs in the past Developed and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and a Letter of Understanding (LOU) Developed a Request for Information (RFI) from RTOs Conducted a market benefits study to evaluate resource-side benefits of having a common tariff and joining an RTO Narrowed discussions for potential RTO membership to Southwest Power Pool Ongoing outreach in various forums 12
Request for Information from RTOs Issued to SPP, CAISO, MISO, and PJM in May 2016 o Responses received in July 2016 o Requested that the RTOs provide information on a wide range of services from common transmission tariff administration to full RTO membership In January 2017, Mountain West announced its plans to narrow discussions to SPP 13
Proposed Regional Tariff Features Adopt SPP s existing governing structure and stakeholder process with some modifications to accommodate the addition of new states and west-wide only characteristics Adopt SPP s existing Integrated Marketplace design with possible modifications to optimize the DC-ties o Mountain West and SPP are exploring the ability to dispatch both the eastside and west-side assets in a single market Incorporate Colorado Coordinating Planning Group (Mountain West participants region of WestConnect) into SPP s Order 1000 process. o No regional transmission cost sharing for existing or new AC facilities between the east-side SPP facilities and west-side Mountain West facilities o Cost of future DC-ties would be subject to the SPP planning process and allocated to customers on a basis roughly commensurate with anticipated benefits. 14
Proposed Regional Tariff Features Arrangements for WAPA CRSP and LAP o Federal Service Exemption (FERC approved for WAPA-Upper Great Plains in SPP) Network customers in Mountain West footprint pay the zonal rate in which their load sinks o Owners in zone retain revenue for zonal network load Single Regional Through and Out Rate (RTOR) applied to Point-to-Point transmission Mitigation of cost shifts over seven year period 15
Mountain West Analyses 16
Market Benefits Study Brattle Group conducted a two-phase production cost study Current Year 2016 (Phase 1) Status quo with nine tariffs Remove pancaked transmission charges to simulate a common tariff RTO market Future Year 2024 (Phase 2) Multiple scenarios 17
Market Benefits Study Phase 1 and 2 results showed encouraging production cost savings in RTO market Benefits of common-tariff-only were not significant Parties focusing on full RTO membership 18
Market Benefits Study Results Production Cost Savings (Mountain West) Annual Benefit Annual Benefit 2016 2024 Single Tariff/Existing Bilateral Market $14 M Not Studied Single Tariff/RTO Day 2 Market $53 M $71 M RTO Costs for Mountain West Start-Up Cost from Annual Cost RTO Tariff Administration only $4-7 M $3-7 M RTO Membership NA* $24-60 M * Start-up costs for an RTO to incorporate Mountain West participants into the membership are included in the annual cost. 19
DC-ties Optimization Study Mountain West participants and SPP contracted with The Glarus Group to perform a DC-ties optimization study Study aims to identify potential production cost savings if DC-tie hurdles are removed between Mountain West and SPP Hurdles include both transmission charges and hourly e- Tagging limitations Results show additional production cost savings should accrue to MWTG and SPP
Mountain West Next Steps 21
Next Steps Regulatory and Stakeholder Outreach Continue discussions of potential RTO membership to SPP o Discussions will focus on details to determine if Mountain West needs can be met Mountain West has NOT decided to join SPP Mountain West may pursue further discussions with MISO, PJM, or both Stage Two of SPP new Member Integration Process kick-off meetings Scheduled for October 13 in Denver, October 16 in Little Rock 22
Estimated Timeline Ongoing: Early - Mid 2017: Mid 2017 Mid 2018: October 2019: Customer, regulator, and stakeholder meetings Discussions with SPP; Mountain West entities determine if SPP membership is viable State and federal regulatory approvals Implementation 23
Contact Info Raymond Vojdani Transmission Services Advisor WAPA-RMR avojdani@wapa.gov (970) 461-7379 24