MISO announced it will honor a request from Texas regulators and include southeastern Texas in its first long-range transmission study for MISO South.

At a time when MISO’s long-term planning is under fire, the Organization of MISO States’ annual meeting featured speakers who vouched for the power of planning.

MISO is taking load updates and stakeholder suggestions as part of a pilot program to improve its long-term load forecasting.

MISO said its first crack at long-range transmission planning in the South region likely would take about three years to culminate in potential project recommendations.

MISO has slashed earlier renewable energy estimates and boosted natural gas contributions in its transmission planning futures in a rethink brought on by the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

MISO will start evaluating its South region for long-term transmission needs in 2026, beginning with Louisiana, the RTO announced before its Board of Directors.

Ameren Illinois remains adamant that it should have exclusive access to construct nearly $2 billion of MISO regional transmission projects in the state without competition.

MISO and several stakeholders came to the defense of the RTO’s $21.8 billion, 24-project long-range transmission plan portfolio for the Midwest as five Republican states seek to repeal the projects’ approval.

MISO said its set of 20-year transmission planning futures must be further fine-tuned after the Trump administration’s repeal of tax credits for renewable generation.

The tone of Infocast’s 2025 Midcontinent Energy Summit was noticeably apprehensive compared with last year, owing to political and regulatory uncertainty, load growth ambiguity, fluctuating tariffs and a pending complaint against MISO’s long-range transmission plan.