The Transmission Professionals special interest group covers the distribution of power from generation to final destination.
Question
MISO will be discussing interconnection rules around DERs at March 16 Interconnection Process Task Force.
That prompts the question -what is the role for MISO as a grid operator and transmission provider in approving interconnections on the distribution system?
If DER stays on the distribution system, it is the distribution utility's responsibility - right? What if, the DER wants to participate in the wholesale energy market? Then, that resource must go through the interconnection queue - right? But at what MW size does that make sense? 100 kW is too small, perhaps 500 kW?
https://www.misoenergy.org/events/interconnection-process-working-group-ipwg---march-16-2021/
Good question Rao, and certainly a lot to be determined by each RTO/ISO as FERC 2222 is outworked.
The challenge is also being looked at and tackled in other international markets as well, with often the key sticking points between the role of the Market operator and distribution entity.
Right now MISO does not care about distributed generation until the aggregate flow back to the transmission system is 75MW. So if your the 500KW project that tips the scale to the MISO queue, you will probably get slammed with some huge costs. The independent transmission providers in MISO (e.g. ITC, ATC) have both in the past said that there was "no" affect on their system at 10 MW reverse power flow into their system (I have not had a situation where at one substation there was more than 10MW, so I don't know an actual number.
WARNING: These are based on historical actual situations, with FERC 2222, FERC 841/2/5 - those numbers may be changing, so check before deciding to build.
The far bigger issues are getting interval ahead from MISO on storage in "continuous" mode for utilities who have it installed on their distribution system, but are not transmission owners. It might be a peak day, with great solar in your area and you want to use the battery to reduce power flow on the circuit and MISO may need that battery discharging overloading your circuit by 130 or 150% in extreme cases.
Again all of this is based on historical actuals and your mileage will vary (not might).
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