Commissioner James Danly Dissent Regarding Southwest Power Pool, Inc.

Commissioner James Danly Statement
April 14, 2023
Docket Nos. ER22-2968-000 and ER22-2968-001

I dissent from today’s order that rejects Southwest Power Pool, Inc.’s (SPP) proposed revisions to Attachment V (Generator Interconnection Procedures (GIP)) of its Open Access Transmission Tariff (Tariff) to implement a new pro forma Facilities Service Agreement (FSA)[1] for use when a transmission owner elects the Transmission Owner Initial Funding option, under the existing language in Article 11.4 of its pro forma Generating Interconnection Agreement (GIA).  SPP’s filing is facially just and reasonable, and I would approve.  I write separately to explain how the majority manifestly errs in rejecting the FSA. 

As an initial matter, both under SPP’s existing Tariff and under the FSA, a transmission owner must elect the Transmission Owner Initial Funding option at the time of the GIA negotiation phase.  The proposed Tariff revisions include a new non-binding indication of whether a transmission owner will elect the Transmission Owner Initial Funding option at an earlier stage than otherwise currently required.  An advance non-binding indication is actually superior to the existing Tariff because it provides more information to interconnection customers earlier in the process and does not, contrary to the position of the majority, create uncertainty warranting rejection.  Non-binding unequivocally means non-binding and interconnection customers necessarily will have to take that fact into account in exploring potential funding requirements, just as they do today in advance of the binding election. 

Perhaps an analogy will help explain.  When buying a house, a potential buyer will (or should) perform due diligence to identify estimated closing costs in order to plan accordingly if the buyer and not the seller ultimately pays such costs; however, the actual closing costs, which can increase or even decrease, and which party will be responsible for those costs, will not be final until the time of closing.  That the estimate or responsible party might change is a known fact and cannot be said to create uncertainty and it is not and cannot be considered problematic for the potential buyer.  Having more information earlier is beneficial not harmful.  This equally applies here too.

Now, and under the FSA, and even following the rejection of this filing, the timing of the binding decision remains unchanged; however, by denying an earlier indication of the transmission owner’s potential election, interconnection customers will be denied access to information at an earlier stage under the Tariff.  That denial of information actually creates uncertainty; it does not protect against it.

For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.