Review of 2006 Ten-Year Site Plans - Public Service Commission

FRCC on reliability matters affecting the state. The Commission will continue to work closely with
the FRCC, NERC, and FERC to ensure the adequacy and reliability of Florida’s electric grid.
FRCC TRANSMISSION PLANNING PROCESS
One of the benefits attributed to the formation of a regional transmission organization (RTO)
is centralized, coordinated transmission planning. In April 2006, the Commission closed a lengthy
investigation into the prudence of forming an RTO, known as GridFlorida, because it did not appear to
be cost-effective. The Commission directed Peninsular Florida’s utilities to coordinate their
transmission planning activities through the FRCC in an effort to capture some benefits of an RTO.
The FRCC’s transmission planning process is expected to yield a more complete transmission
expansion plan from a peninsular perspective. The process will ensure that the reliability standards
and criteria established by the NERC and the FRCC are met and will use the specific design,
operating, and planning criteria employed by Peninsular Florida transmission owners. The
Commission staff has participated in the FRCC’s meetings on transmission planning. The
Commission will continue to monitor coordinated planning efforts by Florida’s utilities and, if
necessary, will exercise its Grid Bill authority to ensure the adequacy and reliability of Florida’s
transmission system.
The FRCC performs a long range, ten-year study, as well as a study of the interface between
Florida and the Southern Company (Southern). Sensitivity studies test the robustness of Peninsular
Florida’s transmission system under various conditions and are performed within both studies.
Examples of the sensitivities studied are as follows:
• Transmission and/or generation facilities unavailable due to scheduled and/or forced outages.
• Weather extremes for summer and winter periods.
• Different load levels (e.g., 100-, 80-, 60-, and 40 percent) and/or seasons of the year.
• Various generation dispatches that will test or stress the transmission system.
• Reactive supply and demand assessment (generator reactive limits and power factor).
• Specific areas of combination/cluster of generation and load serving capability among various
transmission owners/providers in the FRCC that continually experience or are expected to
experience significant congestion.
• Other scenarios or system conditions, such as stability analysis.
Consistent with the FRCC transmission planning process, these sensitivity studies will not
necessarily call for the construction of transmission facilities identified in the studies, but will provide
insight into how robust the planned transmission system is expected to be.
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