IPWG: Financial Impact & Provisional GIA (20210112)

January 25, 2021

Invenergy appreciates the opportunity to comment on MISO's January 12 proposal to clarify tariff language surrounding provisional GIA's ability to rely on penalty free withdrawal provisions.  The development and interconnection process is, unfortunately, not a linear one and MISO continues to build punitive provisions into its tariff to punish developers who made decisions to stay in the queue based on their understanding of the MISO process and based on the studies they have when they have them, only to see completely unexpected and project killing upgrades later in the process due to other projects dropping or due to previously unidentified or very late/delayed affected system study results.  These edits go so far as to eliminate penalty free withdrawal for projects with PGIAs in the event that MISO or the TO make a mistake in their studies and upgrade costs rise as a result.  A developer should not be required to forfeit millions of dollars in security due to the errors of others, despite executing a PGIA.

At a minimum, because DPP 1 no longer contains affected system and stability studies, interconnection customers should have the ability to return to the regular DPP process up until Decision Point 2.  This, at least, ensures that an interconnection customer has the bare minimum in terms of information to understand the risk it is taking on by executing a PGIA.

Thank you,

Nicole Luckey

Vice President, Regulatory Affairs

Invenergy LLC

Clean Grid Alliance Comments on Financial Impact and PGIA

Jan 27, 2021

Clean Grid Alliance appreciates MISO’s consideration of concerns regarding PGIA financial penalties that can be very severe and due to no fault of the interconnection customer. Projects sometimes come out of Phase 1 and have very “clean” results with minimal upgrades. Because of that, the project may elect to undertake a PGIA to progress quickly to the end, only to find out later in Phase 2 or Phase 3 that the interconnection is unexpectedly being assigned insurmountable Network Upgrade fees and can no longer proceed. Additionally, with the clarifications MISO is proposing to the Tariff, even if MISO or the TO make a mistake in the studies and upgrade costs rise to levels that prevent a project from going forward, that project must still pay the financial penalty for mistakes made by others. This Tariff edit is an opportunity to correct that, as such errors and mistakes are covered in the penalty free withdrawal provisions of the DPP. We encourage MISO to find a balance that meets the objective of preventing all but the most ready and simple interconnections (i.e. minimal Network Upgrades) from proceeding, but also offers protections for those that proceed, and through no fault of their own, could be forced to withdraw due to circumstances beyond their control. 

Currently, interconnection customers cannot revert from a PGIA track back to the regular DPP process if Decision Point 1 is passed. However, this policy was made when Phase 1 of DPP contained Affected System and Stability Studies for interconnection customers to make a fully informed decision, which the DPP Phase 1 process no longer allows for today. The penalty-free withdrawal provision of the DPP process is the only protection or safe-guard that projects have from errors by MISO or the TOs, or unexpected Network Upgrade increases in later phases. Therefore, at a very minimum, MISO should update the PGIA process to reflect this by allowing a project to return to the regular DPP process up until Decision Point 2.  This is an important update that can help create a balance between putting risk on the PGIA projects so only the most ready and simple projects proceed, but also protect the projects that proceed in good faith and based on the best available information, but come into circumstances beyond their control. 

Sincerely, 

Rhonda R. Peters, Ph.D.

Technical Consultant, Clean Grid Alliance

Apex Clean Energy (Apex) appreciates the opportunity to provide feedback on the presentation item entitled GIP Improvements: Financial Impacts & Provisional GIA.   

In Apex' view there should be an added decision point after completion of the provisional study where ICs have two options: either provide a binding election to proceed to PGIA, or have the ability to revert back to the standard DPP process because the provisional study came back with adverse results.