Evaluating New Business Opportunities for Interregional Transmission

Abstract

The merchant transmission investment model is conducive to addressing interregional and long-range transmission needs as it provides a pathway to circumvent localized regional and state transmission planning processes and focus directly on interregional development. Furthermore, merchant transmission investments in accordance with comprehensive (multi-value) benefits planning provide a favorable benefit-to-cost ratio for transmission customers and support positive returns for investors. However, evaluating the comprehensive benefits of proposed transmission projects is computationally expensive and unfeasible to execute for early-stage, exploratory analysis of multiple projects. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the development and use of a computationally-reduced transmission business evaluation tool that heuristically evaluates critical components of comprehensive benefits and assesses merchant-based cost recovery viability of five interregional and long-range transmission projects on a forward-looking basis.