Just & Reasonable? Transmission Upgrades Charged to Interconnecting Generators Are Delivering System-Wide Benefits

Just and Reasonable? Transmission Upgrades Charged to Interconnecting Generators Are Delivering System-Wide Benefits, a report by ICF Resources on behalf of the American Council on Renewable Energy, produced with support from the Macro Grid Initiative and in collaboration with American Clean Power Association, finds that while the entire power system typically benefits from significant transmission upgrades, new wind and solar projects are being asked to foot nearly the entire bill when connecting to the grid. In an analysis of network upgrades in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) and Southwest Power Pool (SPP) regions, the study found significant system-wide benefits in two-thirds of the network upgrades evaluated, which other users of the shared system are receiving at little to no cost. This appears to violate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s “beneficiary pays” principle, which stipulates that regional transmission organizations are required to ensure that transmission costs are assigned at least “roughly commensurate with estimated benefits.”

Just & Reasonable – Transmission Upgrades Charged to Interconnecting Generators Are Delivering System-Wide Benefits