At their quarterly meetup, MISO members largely agreed there won’t be an easy path to achieving decarbonization affordably for customers.

MISO’s quarterly public meetup with its board of directors put on display the unrelenting rift between the RTO’s planners and the Independent Market Monitor over MISO’s $21 billion in long-range transmission planning.

MISO said its second, mostly 765-kV long-range transmission plan will provide the Midwest region with at least a 1.9:1 benefit-cost ratio, a metric that was greeted with skepticism by Independent Market Monitor David Patton.

MISO and its transmission owners defended their practice of allowing TOs to self-fund network upgrades necessary to bring generation online before developers get the chance to finance them.

MISO’s new day-ahead market clearing engine should move into standalone production near the end of September following a delay in testing, RTO executives said.

FERC dismissed separate complaints from MISO and Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. over a MISO-SPP flowgate chronically stressed by a North Dakota cryptocurrency mining operation.

After five fruitless attempts to agree on joint transmission projects across their seams, MISO and SPP will use what they call a “blended joint model” in parallel with existing SPP and MISO regional models.

MISO’s 2024 transmission planning cycle is shaping up to include 459 new projects totaling $6.7 billion.

MISO is adamant that it should limit project proposals in future queue cycles to 50% of annual peak load to moderate its 300-GW, oversaturated queue.