Pool Adds Transmission Distance Rate

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has amended the Mid-Continent Area Power Pool (MAPP) agreement, adding a distance-based transmission service charge for short-term transmission services provided by MAPP members (Docket No. ER94-1529-000). Previously, MAPP members provided reciprocal short-term transmission services to each other, charging only for transmission losses.

MAPP wants to apply a distance-based transmission charge for wholesale coordination transactions of four years or less between pool members. It claims that actual use of pool transmission facilities often does not "even out" over time, so that some MAPP members transmit larger amounts of short-term pool power than others. The new method is designed to ensure proper cost allocation and optimal use of the system. Each pool member computes the average cost of its transmission lines, and that data is used to compute a pool-wide average transmission line cost per megawatt-mile (that is, average pool-wide transmission costs divided by the sum of the megawatt-mile capacity of all lines).