MISO and its supporters say the decisions by FirstEnergy and Duke Energy Ohio to leave MISO for PJM are proof that deliverability issues across the RTOs’ borders are due to PJM’s modeling rather than any physical constraints. But others — including FirstEnergy and Duke — say they are incorrect.

When it was in MISO, Duke’s energy and capacity was not considered deliverable into the PJM markets, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission contends. After Duke joined PJM in January 2012, “and without the building of any additional transmission facilities, deliverability of electricity and capacity was no longer an issue,” the state said in a filing with FERC.

Load Also Moved

PJM says MISO and its supporters are ignoring the fact that PJM assumed dispatch of Duke and FirstEnergy’s generation, and that the companies’ loads also moved to PJM.

Duke said its Ohio affiliate left MISO because it jointly owned transmission and generation with PJM utilities, and because PJM is designed to accommodate retail choice.

FirstEnergy’s Rationale

FirstEnergy said its 2011 move allowed the company to realign its operations into a single RTO. American Transmission Systems, Inc. (ATSI), FirstEnergy’s transmission affiliate, has 32 interconnections with PJM, but only three with MISO, the company said in a FERC filing in August.

“The ATSI integration into PJM resulted in an addition of load to the PJM footprint that exceeded the amount of FirstEnergy generation capacity that was integrated, and therefore, regardless of the move to PJM, there was no increase in capacity sales, net of FirstEnergy load,” FirstEnergy said.

“Moreover, following the move to PJM, PJM obtained scheduling, dispatch and operational control over FirstEnergy’s transmission facilities and included FirstEnergy’s generation and load in its planning models. PJM could not have had such scheduling, dispatch and operational control over FirstEnergy’s facilities when FirstEnergy was in MISO.”