Leaders of the Southwest Power Pool – the controlling grid over Oklahoma, Kansas, and several other states – believe the next decade will see a 96% growth in demand for energy. And they welcome a new decision from federal regulators, a decision that will directly affect the study of the ability to provide power for data centers and expanded industrial growth in the grid.
As the SPP considers new generation resources, like those pending before regulators in Oklahoma, it also recently reacted to a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that will allow the SPP and other regional grids to change the way they handle requests for new generation, such as the requests for more data centers in the state.
The “Kansas Reflector” recently reported that the SPP had written FERC and observed the way the previous rules were enforced, a transmission customer had to show it had resources to serve an existing customer's existing load in addition to the load request to be added.
Because of the new FERC decision, it will allow the SPP to better plan for projected load gains. It should allow the grid to consider new resources that might come online even if the transmission customers lack the resources to serve their forecasted load.
In its request to FERC, the grid stated, “SPP explains that it is experiencing increased requests for load additions, which are partially driven by large load additions such as data centers and industrial load. SPP notes that many transmission customers have been unable to demonstrate sufficient existing designated resources to serve their 10-year load forecasts that also include the load addition... “
“Predictions are difficult,” Casey Cathey, SPP vice president of engineering, told the Reflector.
“I’ve worked in the industry just over two decades and when I first started, we were excited by 1% load growth year over year. The latest load forecast and demand forecasts we’re seeing 10 years out are over 75% (load increase) at peak levels.”
It was the case made by the SPP to FERC.
“SPP asserts that the Provisional Load Process is just and reasonable because it allows transmission customers the ability to have new load additions studied by considering planned generation that will be needed to serve transmission customers’ existing forecasted load and new load. Further, SPP states that the Provisional Load Process is just and reasonable because SPP, through the Provisional Load Process, analyzes the impact of proposed, planned, but not yet existing, generation on the transmission system, which may aid the transmission customer in planning for how it will serve its future load by allowing it to see the impacts of its planned generation before it is in service.”
“Utility Dive” reported that FERC’s decision affected what is called the “provisional load process” by the SPP. Because of the decision, the Southwest Power Pool will now be able to study potential data centers and other load additions, such as new industries, “even when there isn't available power to serve the new facilities.”
As reported by “Utility Dive,” recently SPP has been unable to study many transmission customers’ requests for load additions because they lacked power supplies to cover their 10-year load forecast, including the load addition — a requirement under the grid operator’s rules for load interconnection studies to move ahead, the grid operator said in its June 4 proposal at FERC.