Attachment K Transmission Planning Process Update
Tacoma Power presented the Transmission Plan Draft Report to its transmission customers and interested stakeholders in a meeting on October 27, 2010. Among the attendees were representatives from Peninsula Light Company, BPA, PSE, Parkland Light and Water Cooperative, and ColumbiaGrid. No changes to the content or format of the draft report were proposed by the attendees/stakeholders during or after the meeting. Tacoma Power’s Attachment K process calls for a fourth stakeholder meeting to go over the final report in the middle of December. However, due to the absence of proposed changes to the draft report, it was agreed to by the attendees in the October meeting to forego the fourth meeting in favor of receiving the final report via email. The Transmission Plan Final Report was subsequently emailed to the attendees/stakeholders on December 15th.
A copy of the Transmission Plan Final Report can also be found here by clicking on the following link: 2009-10 Attachment K Planning Process - Transmission Plan Report - Final 12-15-2010.
With the posting of the final report on this website, Tacoma Power officially concludes its Attachment K Planning Process for the 2009-10 biennium.
Questions? Contact Francis Tong at (253) 502-8262 or at TransRequest@cityoftacoma.org.
FERC Order No. 890 – Tacoma Power Strawman
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Order No. 890 requires our utility to document how it will satisfy the following nine planning principles outlined in Order No. 890: coordination, openness, transparency, information exchange, comparability, dispute resolution, regional coordination, economic planning studies and cost allocation for new projects.
Background
In 2000, the Tacoma Public Utility Board approved our Open Access Transfer Tariff (Tariff) and FERC’s pro forma Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT), established through Order No. 888, in 1996. In 2007, FERC issued Order No. 890 revising the OATT and proposed a number of revisions, including the addition of a transmission planning Attachment K. Before finalization of Attachment K, FERC requested that parties post a Strawman.
Discussion
We intend to revise our Tariff, and to include an Attachment K planning process for our system that will mesh with the planning processes of ColumbiaGrid for multi-system projects, other local and sub-regional planning activities and the west-wide regional planning coordination services provided by WECC. We will be consulting with our transmission customers, stakeholders and other providers throughout the region as we develop these revisions.
Regional and sub-regional transmission planning
We are a member of the ColumbiaGrid and have executed Columbia Grid’s Planning and Expansion Functional Agreement (PEFA). The PEFA provides a foundation and process to coordinate planning activities on a regional basis through a single-system approach for public utility and non-public utility transmission providers. The ColumbiaGrid Strawman delineates how the PEFA planning process, including the roles of specific regional and sub-regional transmission planning organizations, will meet the nine transmission planning principles provided by Order No. 890.
Local transmission system planning
Our Tariff contains applicable provisions that apply to local transmission planning activities, including our service and standard network operating agreements. We utilize our service agreement and attendant instruments to share load data, discuss relevant operation and maintenance issues that will help us plan operation and expansion of our transmission system to meet Tariff customers’ needs. We will continue to use these processes and the planning activities outlined in the Columbia Grid Strawman. Our local planning process supports a coordinated, open and transparent local transmission planning as outlined in Attachment K.
Please contact Travis Metcalfe at (253) 502-8149 or tmetcalfe@cityoftacoma.org with any further questions or comments.