Updated 1/28/2011

Renewables Integration Plans and Challenges March 8, 2011 Jay Caspary ·

3 New vision of transmission In the past, built least-cost transmission to meet local needs Today, proactively building “superhighways” to benefit region: – Facilitate adding new generation to grid, including renewables – Improve electric reliability, operational efficiencies, and access to lower-cost and diverse generation resources – Enable wholesale energy markets to be more competitive – Contribute to economic success beyond electric industry – Reduce land use impacts

4 Finding Balance Less Amount of Transmission More No Limits to Low Cost Delivery Less Investment More SPP Today Expand Transmission Customer Energy Cost More Transmission Needed Minimum for Reliable Delivery to Customers

5 Goal: Design transmission backbone to connect load to most reasonable generation alternatives – Strengthen ties to Eastern, possibly Western Interconnections – Promote transmission investment to meet reliability, economic, and public policy needs Horizons: 20, 10, and 4 year Focus: Regional, integrated with local Resulting in: Comprehensive list of needed projects for SPP region over next 20 years – With 40 year financial/economic analysis Underlying Value: Reliability and Economics are inseparable Integrated Transmission Planning

Plan for 2030

Other Transmission Planning Generation Interconnection Studies –Determines what transmission is needed to connect new generation to grid –Doesn’t include transmission service Aggregate Studies –Determines what transmission is needed meet requests for transmission service –Shares costs of studies and new transmission 7

Projects Constructed

Projects with Notifications to Construct 9 9

Regional Plans 10

11 Annual Average Wind Speed - 80 meters 11

12 Wind In Service

13 Generation Interconnection Requests

14 Annual Average Wind Speed - 80 meters 14

15 EWITS Scenario 2 Supporting 20% RPS

Merchant Developers like Clean Line are Proposing Large HVDC Projects

Recent Studies Regarding Wind Issues SPS Wind Penetration Study SPP Wind Integration Task Force Study Nebraska Power Authority Wind Study EWITS Scenarios with 20% - 30% National RES which results in 150GW of wind in plains EPRI PRISM/MERGE Analyses 2009 Update 17

Wind May Be Carbon Free, But… Existing thermal fleet, particularly base load design fossil units, provide optimal economic performance and least environmental impacts at rated capacity without cycling, ramps, start-ups, and degrading performance over time Stakeholders and affected parties needs to understand the impacts of renewable resources on net load shapes for dispatchable resources and operating efficiencies including increased emissions per unit of output for fossil fleet Value of accurate forecasting and proactive management of wind injections is understated 18

Wind May Be Carbon Free, But… (cont.) Value transmission expansion to capture and manage diversity of intermittent resources must be quantified for system security and market operations, e.g., ancillary services. Perfect forecasts understate environmental impacts, cycling duties, unit inefficiencies, etc. Marginal cost based, economic planning studies do not capture market based solutions or real economic impacts and consequences, so… 19

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