RTO sends RCA plan for Railbelt transmission tariff

Alan Bailey

for Petroleum News

In response to an order issued by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, the Railbelt Transmission Organization has made a filing with the RCA, with a provisional plan to implement a new tariff for the use of the Alaska Railbelt transmission system.

In 2024 the state Legislature mandated the formation of the RTO, to develop and oversee a new Railbelt electricity transmission tariff arrangement that would remove current impediments to competition in the bulk power market in the Railbelt. Because of the manner in which the current fees for the use of different sectors of the transmission grid stack on top of each other, the fee arrangements tend to deter the development of new power generation that could transmit power over long distances.

As required by the state statute, in July the RTO filed its initial tariff. Subsequently the RCA opened a docket to review the tariff. The order that the RTO is responding to came from that docket.

The initial tariff filing did not include a plan for implementing the tariff and determining the fees that will be charged for transmission system use. The RCA order requires the RTO to provide a plan for the fee structure implementation. It also asks some specific questions about whether or how accommodation should be made in the fee structure for the relative benefits of using different sectors of the grid, and how to deal with existing contracts for some uses of the grid -- existing contracts are constitutionally protected.

In response to the RCA order, the RTO has filed a timeline and plan for developing the transmission fee arrangements. The filing also responds to the other RCA questions. However, given that there are still many unknowns regarding the specifics of how the fee structure will be developed, and how much work will be involved, the organization emphasized that, at this stage, the plan is somewhat uncertain.

However, the plan indicates that it will likely take until the end of the second quarter of 2027 to fully complete the tariff implementation process.

The RTO is an entity within the Alaska Energy Authority. It is governed by a committee consisting of an AEA representative, a representative from each Railbelt electric utility, and a representative from the Railbelt Reliability Council.