Great Lakes Utilities seeks front-of-meter, behind-the-meter solar proposals

by APPA News
January 4, 2021

Wisconsin-based joint action agency Great Lakes Utilities (GLU) is seeking proposals for front-of-meter and behind-the-meter solar projects under a recently issued request for proposals (RFP).

The Energy Authority is the administrator for the RFP.

GLU, which provides various services to its 12 member owners, is seeking bids for power purchase agreements and build-transfer submissions with a commercial operation date between 2021-2023 for:

• A portfolio of community-sited, behind-the-meter solar installations and
• A 20-25 megawatt front-of-meter (FTM), utility-scale, Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) capacity Zone 2 solar project to mitigate future market price risk and fuel hedging cost.

Battery energy storage will also be considered for the behind-the-meter projects as outlined in the RFP.

GLU is looking to procure energy, capacity, and renewable energy credits for a term between 10-20 years.

Key elements of project consideration are project viability, price, congestion risk, and deliverability and GLU is only seeking bids for projects physically located within MISO Capacity Zone 2.

GLU is a member of MISO and its average system peak for 2019 was 370 MW with similar load projected for 2020 and beyond.

The projects sought under the RFP are intended to meet capacity shortfall requirements due to upcoming expiration of existing power purchase agreements and to reduce future transmission cost and delivery risk.

Additional details about the RFP are available here.