By Amanda Durish Cook
American Electric Power has filed a complaint against MISO for failing to collect and distribute millions in transmission charges from three defunct load-serving entities more than a decade ago.
In an Oct. 10 filing with FERC, AEP claimed that MISO owes more than $4.8 million to its PJM transmission affiliates after MISO failed to bill seams-related surcharges to energy providers Nicor Energy, Engage Energy America and The New Power Co., all of which shuttered before December 2004, when MISO created the charges (EL18-7). Nicor folded in 2003 amid financial fraud allegations, while New Power was liquidated in bankruptcy that same year. Engage went out of business in 2004.
AEP is seeking the money through the Seams Elimination Charge/Cost Adjustments/Assignments (SECA), a non-bypassable surcharge in MISO’s Tariff intended to recover lost revenues for a 16-month transition period during the elimination of through-and-out rates in late 2004 in the MISO and PJM regions.
AEP said that when MISO was setting up the SECA invoice system, Nicor, Engage and New Power were already defunct and not invoiced, but the RTO nevertheless listed their ensuing charges and “allocated even more SECA charges to the Nicor Energy and Engage sub-zones (based on 2003 data).”
“The allocation of SECA charges to nonexistent LSEs thwarted recovery of the SECA charges, ran counter to fundamental cost allocation principles and resulted in cost subsidies by reducing the SECA responsibility of others,” AEP said. “MISO did not bill and collect SECA charges from the three nonexistent LSEs, nor did it adjust the SECA charges allocated to them (as the RTO did to others) and, therefore, did not remit to the PJM [transmission owners] the revenue from all allocated SECA charges.”
AEP said it asked for compensation from MISO in conference calls in November 2016 and the following August, but the RTO refused to pay. The company asked FERC to either order MISO to pay the charges with interest or set up settlement proceedings to resolve the dispute.
