SPP Members Withdraw Petition Against Transmission Expansion Cost-Allocation Process

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All Southwest Power Pool (SPP) members have withdrawn their federal appeal of the highway/byway regional cost-allocation methodology and process for funding transmission expansion, SPP says.

Empire District Electric Co., Lincoln Electric System, Nebraska Public Power District, Omaha Public Power District, and City Utilities of Springfield, Mo., formally submitted their request for voluntary dismissal of their petition for review with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The members had filed the petition for review of certain orders issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regarding revisions to SPP's tariff to implement a highway/byway regional cost-allocation methodology for transmission expansion projects. Specifically, members were concerned with potential unintended consequences of that allocation process and how those would be addressed by the organization.


The allocation process was developed by the SPP's Regional State Committee (RSC), which represents state regulators in the region. A review process was developed by a joint task force of SPP members and the RSC called the Regional Allocation Review Task Force (RARTF).

Butch Reeves, Arkansas Public Service commissioner and president of the SPP RSC, was a member of the RARTF that developed the review process for cost allocation to ensure that SPP's highway/byway methodology is reviewed for fairness and equity.

"We know that members wanted well-defined analytical methods to review the reasonableness of "highway/byway' cost allocation, and we think the collective work from the task force created a good outcome," Reeves says.

Additionally, the RARTF developed a set of solutions for any unintended impacts caused by this cost-allocation methodology. The RARTF's recommendations were approved by SPP's RSC, Market Operations and Policy Committee, Membership Committee, and the board of directors in late January.

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