FERC on July 21 approved a controversial MISO proposal to create a fast lane for certain reliability-related projects in the RTO’s interconnection queue — just two months after rebuffing an earlier version of the plan (ER25-2454).

The commission in May rejected the first iteration of the Expedited Resource Addition Study (ERAS) proposal, which was designed to speed up interconnection of resources that state regulators have identified as necessary to ensure resource adequacy in areas under their oversight.

In its May decision, the commission found the original ERAS plan lacked clarity around standards for identifying true RA projects and that — absent a cap on potential applicants — the expedited process was at risk of becoming bogged down with too many proposed projects. (See FERC Rejects MISO’s Interconnection Queue Fast Lane.)

Responding to those concerns, MISO quickly developed a revised proposal that caps the ERAS fast lane at 68 project requests and includes a provision requiring the RTO’s relevant electric retail regulatory authorities (RERRAs) to verify in writing that a project will either address an RA risk or help load-serving entities meet previously unexpected load growth.

Of the 68 slots, MISO proposed that a maximum of 10 would be carved out to accommodate requests from independent power producers that have agreements with entities other than LSEs, while eight will be dedicated to requests for resources intended to serve retail-choice load.

The RTO also proposed to cap the number of expedited studies to just 10 per quarter and limit transmission service requests to 150% of the need identified by a RERRA. It also made clear the ERAS process would be a temporary fixture, concluding at the earlier of either August 2027 or when the queue is cleared.

While MISO’s rapid turnaround on the revision earned support from the RTO’s vertically integrated utilities, it provoked protests from independent power producers and clean energy groups, who argued the newer plan still retained “many of the shortcomings” of the earlier version while introducing additional legal concerns. They also argued it still offered “preferential access to thermal resources at the expense of renewable resources.” (See MISO’s Queue Fast Lane, Take 2, Nets Déjà vu Arguments.)

Michigan’s Public Service Commission also opposed the plan, arguing it lacked “sufficient enforcement of shovel readiness and project completion” and that a provision to cap the megawatt value of expedited projects at 150% of an identified RA need might exclude meaningful participation by developers of renewable energy projects, which have lower capacity factors than thermal projects.

In its comments to FERC, Invenergy argued the new proposal still vested RERRAs with “nearly unbounded discretion to select projects, without any objective criteria to judge whether such projects are capable of satisfying MISO’s resource adequacy needs.”

But the revised plan had strong backing among MISO’s utilities, among them Alliant Energy, Ameren, Big Rivers Electric, Consumers Energy, DTE Energy, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. and Ottertail Power.

‘One-time Design’ Weighs Heavily

FERC’s July 21 order found the eligibility requirements set out in the revised proposal were adequate to “deter speculative interconnection requests from entering the ERAS process and minimize disruption” to resources already sitting in the definitive planning phase of MISO’s existing interconnection process.

“We find that MISO’s revised ERAS proposal sufficiently addresses these concerns identified in the May 2025 order by capping the number and size of ERAS projects, strengthening the RERRA verification requirement, [and] requiring ERAS interconnection requests to be located in the same local resource zone as the resource adequacy or reliability need that it will address,” the commission wrote.

“Additionally, we note that the limited, one-time design of the process weighed significantly on our decision here,” it added.

The commission also found that MISO had “strengthened” the “notification” requirement in the initial ERAS plan “to better ensure that RERRAs affirmatively verify interconnection requests will address specific resource adequacy needs that are not otherwise being addressed.”

The commission said it was “reasonable and appropriate” for MISO to allow RERRAs to select the ERAS projects and “implement their own processes for making such determinations, as this approach strikes a reasonable balance between state authority over resource procurement and commission authority over generation interconnecting to the interstate transmission system. Accordingly, we find that it is not necessary for MISO to establish scoring criteria or a ranking process for proposed ERAS projects, as protesters suggest.”

The commission rejected the argument by IPPs that the proposal intrudes on the commission’s exclusive Federal Power Act jurisdiction over the transmission service terms and conditions set out in MISO’s tariff.

To support their argument, the IPPs cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing decision, which held that the Maryland Public Service Commission’s authority over generating facilities did not allow it to “exercise control over the terms and conditions of interconnection service.”

“We find that the revised ERAS proposal is permissible under Talen because RERRA participation in the ERAS process would be wholly pursuant to a commission-jurisdictional process (i.e., the generator interconnection process), proposed by MISO and approved by the commission — not by state authorities — and under which a [generator interconnection procedure] is on file with the commission and any future revisions would be subject to commission approval,” FERC wrote.

The commission also rejected the contention that the proposal violates the “filed rate” doctrine because it allows states — through their RERRAs — to set the criteria for determining a resource’s participation in ERAS without subjecting that criteria to FERC approval.

“NextEra and MISO IPPs argue that the revised ERAS proposal violates the filed-rate doctrine because it allows RERRAs to establish criteria that would not be on file with the commission and that would determine whether or not an interconnection request is eligible for ERAS. We disagree. We find that the revised ERAS proposal does not present a filed-rate doctrine concern because it provides adequate notice of the ERAS eligibility requirements, including the RERRA verification requirement,” the commission wrote.

MISO intends to kick off the first ERAS process on Sept. 2.