EDPR VP discusses MISO pipeline and ballooning interconnection costs

With 15 projects currently in construction and 500 MW in the works in MISO, EDP Renewables North America is moving quickly to capitalize on its queue positions it secured years in advance.

In an interview with NPM, EDPR VP Tom LoTurco unveiled new insights into the firm’s pipeline, which remains largely focused on the MISO region despite ongoing headwinds with the region’s interconnection queue. Although the firm is presently engaged in project development across the technology spectrum, LoTurco says the firm’s pedigree as a strong wind developer is of particular interest to MISO offtakers.

“Offtakers seem to be more interested in wind because of the profile on the grid as most developers are more active in the solar space,” LoTurco said.

LoTurco says EDPR is also expecting storage to “become a bigger part of the mix” for the firm moving forward including both standalone and hybrid projects, which the firm expects to be delivering between now and 2025. LoTurco says this rollout will only increase in the latter half of the decade as the firm begins adding storage to repowered wind projects.

Although storage developers have complained that ISOs are not properly valuing the positive impacts storage projects can have on grid congestion and reliability, LoTurco says ongoing reliability issues in MISO, ERCOT and CAISO as well as NYISO and PJM may soon change that.

“I think the grid benefits of storage will start to become very important to offtakers,” LoTurco said.

Within MISO, Indiana has become a particular hotspot for output from EDPR. The firm just completed its Indiana Crossroads Wind II project in White County, which pushes EDPR to 1.4 GW of operating projects in the state. LoTurco says this focus, particularly in White, Benton and Randolph where the firm has already been active, is on pace to continue with 200 MW of solar in construction in White and another 100 MW slated to kick off in Randolph over the Fall. LoTurco says the firm’s repeat business in these specific counties is reflective of the welcome it has received from locals and county commissioners and a “reflection of fantastic locations” for wind projects.

Beyond Indiana, LoTurco says EDPR is interested in more development in MISO South where some of the transmission issues that are gripping MISO’s Western region are less pronounced. The firm has already begun developing 175 MW of wind in Mississippi with plans to develop a project in Arkansas in the works for next year.

LoTurco says many of the queue positions the firm is working through now are up to five years old, illustrating the lengthy timeline for development within the Midwestern ISO. This is an issue LoTurco is not confident will get rectified anytime soon; the ISO received 171 GW of submissions before its Sept. 30 deadline for 2022 positions, a new record for the grid manager.

LoTurco says he sees this issue less as a symptom of MISO itself, but the lack of “concerted investment” in transmission in the US. The key to solving these issues, he argues, is not through large pipeline projects as currently proposed by MISO, but through smaller capital works projects focused on upgrading substations and reconductoring aging lines.

“If you want to do the energy transition in earnest, you’re absolutely going to need to do these upgrades that are within these existing substations and right of ways,” LoTurco said.

He also anticipates affected systems to become a growing issue, particularly as interconnection queues balloon with new projects. In MISO in particular, LoTurco says there are cases where developers have reached the construction phase before ISO-led affected systems studies are completed, leaving developers in the dark until very late in the game on final interconnection costs.

“That type of uncertainty is absolutely detrimental to the industry and investment,” LoTurco said. “And if this is happening in 2018 and 2019 queue rounds, which had a small fraction of what was submitted in 2022, think about how much worse it’s going to be.”

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.


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