Houston—Southwest Power Pool approved construction of a new 138 kV transmission line replacing a nearly 100-year-old line, but a member company is expected to file a request to re-evaluate the project as it collides with a local project currently underway.
SPP staff recommended approval for construction of a new 138 kV line between the existing Butler substation and the existing Tioga substation in Kansas that would replace the Butler to Altoona line, SPP vice president of engineering Antoine Lucas said at the Jan. 26 SPP Board of Directors and Members Committee meeting.The proposal was a follow up from October when the board deferred action on the project "to give time to do further refinement of the project," Lucas said, adding refinement was limited to the project scope and not the need or value of the project. The scope refinement focused on where to use existing right of way and where to build a new line to the new substation.
Opposing viewsHowever, changes to the original project scope should be restudied because they conflict with local needs, said Denise Buffington, Evergy Companies director of federal regulatory affairs. Staff's Jan. 26 recommendation doesn't have accurate cost estimates, doesn't address the age and condition of the line, and was not vetted in the stakeholder process, Buffington said.
"We don't dispute there is a need for an upgrade in this area," Buffington said. "Evergy's focus is on age, condition, location planning need and regional needs."
Evergy, which has a planned transmission system change to rebuild 35 miles of the Butler-Altoona line and add a new substation at Otter Creek, informed SPP it was rebuilding a portion of the Butler-Altoona 138 kV line and has begun to rebuild the 138 kV line starting at Butler to a new substation at Otter Creek.
Evergy's project was based on SPP staff's summer 2020 project scope and would be in service by the end of 2022, Buffington said, adding there was no indication Evergy's plans were inconsistent with SPP's plans until October.
The original line was constructed with no shield wire and has been identified by North American Electric Reliability Corporation as having one of the highest outages frequency rates in its voltage class in North America, Buffington said.
Evergy recommendationsInstead of approving the staff recommendation, Evergy requested the board direct staff to re-evaluate the need for the new Butler-Tioga 138 kV line in light of Evergy's plans to rebuild a portion of the line, and provide a recommendation to the SPP board based on findings.
However, since the SPP board approved the project, Buffington said Evergy plans to formally request, per SPP's Open-Access Transmission Tariff, that SPP re-study the project and that the board suspend the RFP process while the project is restudied.
"The re-study to me appears to have merit," said Chris Jones, City Utilities associate general manager of electric supply and delivery. "It makes sense to put this project on hold. Moving forward with the RFP would not be prudent at this point."
SPP board chair Larry Altenbaumer said once Evergy's request is received, SPP will schedule a special board meeting to consider the re-evaluation and whether to suspend the RFP process.
"Beyond that, subsequent steps depend on how long the restudy takes, as that will determine whether or not the RFP window is extended," SPP spokesman Derek Windfield wrote in an email to Platts Jan. 26.
Wind generation growthSeparately, SPP President and CEO Barbara Sugg said during the president's report that wind-powered generation in 2020 was the top fuel source across SPP.
"We're very proud to have been the first RTO to accomplish this," Sugg said.
By the end of 2020, SPP's installed wind capacity was about 27.4 GW.
"I know there is a lot more wind in the queue," Sugg said.
SPP set a new wind peak record of 19.848 GW at 8:45 am CT (1445 GMT)Jan. 14, surpassing the previous record of 19.691 GW reached Dec. 23, 2020. The historical renewable total was 21,157 MW Jan. 14.
