posted on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 1:12 PM by Tracy Davis

Texas Coop Plans New DC Tie Between ERCOT and SPP

Brazos Electric Cooperative (Brazos) applied to FERC in October and again in November for the interconnection of a new 70-mile, 345 kV transmission line that would connect generation in Oklahoma with load in Texas.  The proposed line would be built in conjunction with Brazos's plans to construct a new 750 MW coal-fired generating unit near the Western Farmers Electric Cooperative's (WFEC) existing Hugo generating facility in Hugo, Oklahoma.  Brazos, an electric coop located in 68 counties across north Texas, and WFEC, which has service areas throughout Oklahoma, will jointly own the new Hugo unit.  In order for Brazos to bring this power from Hugo to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Brazos is planning to build the new DC intertie between ERCOT and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), which will have an approximate capacity of 375 MW.  Accordingly, Brazos has asked FERC to order TXU Electric Delivery (TXU) to allow it to interconnect with TXU's system at the Valley South substation in north Texas.  Brazos also asked FERC to require TXU and CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric to offer transmission service for power flows over the new line into or out of ERCOT.  Brazos has asked FERC to issue a decision on its application by January 31, 2007.

The proposed DC intertie would be the third such interconnection between ERCOT and SPP.  In its application, Brazos took pains to emphasize that its proposed interconnection would maintain the fiction that ERCOT is outside of the interstate grid and not subject to most forms of FERC regulation.  To that end, Brazos specified that the intertie and the generating unit's switching station would be engineered such that the generating facility could generate only into either ERCOT or SPP, but not both at once.