By Chris O’Malley

The Organization of MISO States voted last week to convene discussions on ways to improve the RTO’s stakeholder process and address friction between the RTO and some of its members.

OMS President Libby Jacobs noted that MISO has several efforts under way already, including a white paper that MISO’s Steering Committee will discuss Thursday on concerns that the stakeholder process has become “cumbersome and inefficient.” The MISO Advisory Committee has made stakeholder process improvement the “hot topic” for its October meeting.

“We certainly applaud MISO for their efforts,” Jacobs, of the Iowa Utilities Board, told OMS board members on June 11.

But she said, “We had some concerns that it didn’t appear there was a formal outreach to all the stakeholder groups to really weigh in on the process.”

OMS would convene the dialog but will likely hire an outside facilitator to moderate the discussions, she said.

The effort could help better document how the stakeholder and governance process works, look at best practices at other RTOs and help stakeholders identify priorities.

MISO’s white paper cites overlapping responsibilities among committees and insufficient focus on the most important issues as weaknesses in the current process.

Tensions

Tensions between some MISO stakeholders and the RTO have flared in recent months.

Transmission developers objected earlier this year to MISO’s approval of Entergy’s request for $217 million in out-of-cycle transmission projects in Louisiana. As out-of-cycle projects, they were excluded from competition.

The Consumer Advocates sector complained it was being disenfranchised after MISO denied its request for $200,000 in funding to help cover legal costs in a case before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on MISO transmission owners’ return on equity rates.