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December 14, 2025

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PJM Considering $11.6B Transmission Expansion Plan

PJM staff plan to recommend an $11.6 billion package of transmission projects intended to address rising load growth in the east of the RTO’s footprint.

PJM Director of Transmission Planning Sami Abdulsalam said the first window of the 2025 Regional Transmission Expansion Plan is one of the largest iterations of the planning process the RTO has undertaken, if not the largest. It includes constructing a greenfield 765-kV corridor from West Virginia to central Pennsylvania; an HVDC line in Virginia from Brunswick County to Loudoun County; and upgrades to the 765- and 345-kV networks around Columbus, Ohio. (See PJM Presents Shortlist of RTEP Projects.)

The need is being driven by 8 to 12 GW of load growth expected in the PPL and Mid-Atlantic Area Council (MAAC) regions, along with the risk of capacity resource deactivations and significant delays in offshore wind development, Abdulsalam said.

The window was broken into three clusters — west, MAAC and south — as well as $2.3 billion of in-zone projects and $18.5 million in short-circuit upgrades. Independent cost estimates procured by PJM put the total for the clusters, without the in-zone projects, at $10.2 billion.

Additional upgrades could be required along the 765-kV corridor between PJM’s northwestern region and the AEP zone, depending on how generation planned in ComEd and the northwest is constructed.

A set of seven-year scenarios was included in the analysis to right-size the projects to be able to address long-term needs and offer expandability.

Southern Cluster

The southern cluster of projects includes a new 185-mile undergrounded HVDC line between converter stations to be constructed at the Heritage and Mosby substations. It also includes a new 500-kV line between the existing Elmont substation and planned Kraken substation, and rebuilding several 500-kV lines across Dominion Energy’s territory. The package was proposed by Dominion at a $4.8 billion cost, with an independent estimate at just over $5 billion.

The cluster is intended to improve transfer capacity from the southern region of PJM up to Data Center Alley in Northern Virginia, around Dulles Airport.

Several Virginia and Maryland ratepayers spoke in support of the HVDC project on the basis that the subterranean cables would minimize disturbance to surrounding residents compared to the overhead 765-kV alternatives.

Abdulsalam said there are technical benefits to HVDC as well, as the Dominion proposal offers between 500 MW and 1 GW of additional transfer capability over the AC options, and it would not contribute to short-circuit issues that have been growing in Dominion.

The runner-up in PJM’s analysis was a $2.9 billion Transource Energy project to construct a pair of 765-kV lines, one from Heritage to Vontay and the other between Joshua Falls and Morrisville.

Western Cluster

Load growth in Columbus and to its west contributed to thermal overloads and voltage issues across the region. About 1.7 GW are expected to be added between 2029 and 2030, followed by an additional 3 GW in the subsequent two years.

PJM determined a $2.8 billion Transource project to construct several 765-kV lines around the city is the technically superior option and has an independent cost estimate $600 million lower than a joint NextEra Energy and Exelon proposal the RTO evaluated.

The package includes a 765-kV line spanning 172 miles between the Greentown and Marysville substations, with a new 765-kV substation named Teddy to be built around 35 miles west of Marysville. A 32-mile 765-kV line would be built to connect the expanded Conesville substation to the Guernsey facility, and a 38-mile 765-kV line would link the Adkins substation to West Millersport, which would also be expanded. Conesville and West Millersport would be connected with a new 49.1-mile 765-kV line.

MAAC Cluster

The need in MAAC is driven by about 5 GW of additional load growth identified in the 2025 Load Forecast expected by 2030 and delays in the development of 7.5 GW of offshore wind in New Jersey. Staff selected a $1.7 billion NextEra/Exelon proposal to construct a 222-mile, 765-kV line from the Kammer substation in West Virginia to Juniata in Pennsylvania. Two 765/500-kV substations would be built along the line: Buttermilk Falls would be 114 miles east of Kammer and loop into the 500-kV Keystone-Conemaugh line, and Mountain Stone would be constructed near Juniata.

Several stakeholders questioned whether PJM’s medium-high assessment of the land acquisition and right-of-way risks for the proposal are overly optimistic given the amount of greenfield development needed to construct the line.

Abdulsalsam said almost half of the route proposed by FirstEnergy overlaps with the NextEra/Exelon corridor, demonstrating that three entities looked at the needs and determined the ideal solution is to use the corridor. The joint proposal offers the greatest transfer capability of all the packages in the cluster.

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PJM MRC/MC Preview: Dec. 17, 2025

Below is a summary of the agenda items scheduled to be brought to a vote at the PJM Markets and Reliability Committee and Members Committee meetings Dec. 17. Each item is listed by agenda number, description and projected time of discussion, followed by a summary of the issue and links to prior coverage in RTO Insider.

RTO Insider will be covering the discussions and votes. See next week’s newsletter for a full report.

Markets and Reliability Committee

Consent Agenda (9:05-9:10)

As part of its consent agenda, the committee will be asked to:

B. endorse proposed revisions to Manual 14B: PJM Region Transmission Planning Process drafted through its periodic review. The changes would allow transmission owners to choose having the ambient ratings for their lines modeled at 59 or 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the light-load case used in the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan. References to phase angle regulators were added throughout the document when referencing phase-shifting transformers to improve consistency. (See “Planning Manual Revisions Endorsed,” PJM Stakeholders Endorse Manual Revisions for Modeling DERs.)

C. endorse proposed revisions to Manual 14D: Generation Operational Requirements proposed as part of its periodic review. The language would require generation owners to notify PJM of any issues that may affect their units’ ability to start during a cold weather advisory and add detail to the cold weather operating limit data requests and cold weather advisory drill. (See “Manual 14D Revisions Endorsed,” PJM Monitor Presents Spin Event Performance.)

D. endorse proposed revisions to Manual 14D to rework the rules for generation owners seeking to deactivate units. The FERC-approved changes would require a one-year notice before a resource can be retired and increase the amount of information publicly posted, including the reliability-must-run revenue allocation zonal rate for areas assigned part of the cost associated with agreements to keep units online past their desired deactivation date (ER25-1501). The deactivation avoidable cost credit would be tweaked to remove a $2 million limit on project investments, limit the yearly adder on investments to 10% and remove the trigger causing the daily deficiency rate to be used in lieu of the deactivation avoidable cost rate. (See “Stakeholders Endorse Changes to Generator Deactivation Requirements,” PJM MRC/MC Briefs: Jan. 23, 2025.)

Issue Tracking: Enhancements to Deactivation Rules

E. endorse proposed revisions to Manual 19: Load Forecasting and Analysis drafted through the document’s periodic review. The language would reflect the forecast horizon being extended from 15 years to 20 and correct printing issues with formulas included in the manual.

F. endorse proposed revisions to Manual 18: PJM Capacity Market, Manual 20A: Resource Adequacy Analysis and Manual 21B: PJM Rules and Procedures for Determination of Generating Capability to conform with FERC Order 2222 and detail how distributed energy resources will participate in the 2028/29 Base Residual Auction. The language would also eliminate the availability window for demand response and rework the calculation of the winter peak load for participants to be determined at the system’s coincident peak, rather than individual participants’ peaks. (See PJM Stakeholders Endorse Manual Revisions for Modeling DERs.)

Endorsements (9:10-9:35)

1. Minimum Capitalization (9:10-9:35)

A. PJM’s Ryan Jones will present a proposal endorsed by the Risk Management Committee to increase the tangible net worth or tangible assets an entity must possess to participate in PJM’s markets. (See PJM Presents 1st Read on Minimum Capitalization Requirement Proposal.)

B. The Energy Co-op Executive Director Divya Desai will present proposed amendments to the proposal to revise how the minimum tangible net worth would be calculated under the main motion.

The committee will be asked to endorse the proposed solution and corresponding tariff revisions.

Issue Tracking: Review of Minimum Capitalizations for Participating in PJM Markets

Members Committee

Consent Agenda (10:30-10:35)

As part of its consent agenda, the committee will be asked to:

C. endorse and approve proposed revisions to the tariff, Reliability Assurance Agreement and Operating Agreement drafted by the Governing Document Enhancement and Clarification Subcommittee.

Endorsements (10:35-10:45)

1. Elections (10:35-10:45)

PJM’s Michele Greening will review the proposed sector representatives to serve on the Finance Committee in 2026, as well as sector whips and the MC’s vice chair for the year. The committee will be asked to elect the proposed representatives.

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Report Shows Cost Savings from New Solar, Storage in New England

A new report estimates that solar and battery storage growth in New England between 2025 and 2030 could reduce wholesale energy costs across the region by about $684 million annually by 2030.

The analysis, written by Synapse Energy Economics for the Solar Energy Industries Association, makes the case that continued policy support for solar and storage is part of the solution to the region’s energy affordability challenges.

The authors evaluated the wholesale energy market impacts of adding solar and storage resources between 2025 and 2030 at a pace consistent with meeting Massachusetts’ clean energy plans.

Massachusetts consumers would receive $313 million of the savings, the report notes. The added energy supply accounts for about 80% of the estimated savings, while demand reductions accounted for about 20%, the authors wrote.

The increased solar and storage capacity would also displace the need for about a quarter of the state’s electric-sector gas demand and provide annual carbon reductions of about 1.6 million metric tons in 2030, the authors wrote, adding that the gas savings could help avoid costly investments in new gas pipeline infrastructure.

“Electricity demand is rising across the country, driven by the expansion of data centers, electric vehicles and heat pumps,” the authors wrote. “Relying on gas to meet this rising demand is risky: Gas prices are volatile, and building new pipeline infrastructure is expensive and unpopular. Solar, increasingly paired with battery energy storage, is fast to deploy and part of a solution to maintain grid reliability and energy independence in Massachusetts.”

The authors wrote that the solar and storage growth will also help winter grid reliability by providing additional supply and helping to flatten peak demand. They estimated that about 44% of the savings would occur in the winter months between November and March, adding that “many of these savings are realized during the highest-load winter hours, when reliability risk is the greatest.”

Report co-author Selma Sharaf, a Synapse associate, said the analysis helps to refute a “common misconception” that solar and storage resources do not provide benefits during the winter.

Synapse’s modeling estimated that, “in the top 50% of winter hours ranked by load in 2030, solar and storage serve 11% of demand.”

Co-author Patrick Knight, senior principal at Synapse, emphasized that the energy market cost savings would benefit all electricity consumers throughout the region, not just those that directly deploy behind-the-meter solar or storage.

He noted the analysis largely was focused on energy market impacts and does not provide a full cost-benefit analysis of solar and storage development. It does not consider costs associated with public benefit charges, capacity, ancillary services, transmission and distribution, or public health.

The study comes amid a period of heightened political attention around energy affordability, which has brought tension around the future of state clean energy incentives and programs.

In November, Massachusetts Rep. Mark Cusack (D), co-chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy (TUE), introduced a wide-ranging bill that would give the state legal cover for missing its 2030 climate goals; scale back the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard; and prohibit state agencies from creating any new climate regulations or programs deemed to have “unreasonable adverse impacts” on energy costs. (See Top Mass. House Members Seeking Major Rollback of Climate Laws.)

The proposed legislation, which was supported by the House members of the TUE Committee, faced major pushback from clean energy advocates and grassroots groups, causing House lawmakers to delay further votes on the bill.

Negotiations are poised to resume in 2026, though the legislation has a long way to go before becoming law. Gov. Maura Healey (D) has filed her own energy affordability bill, and Senate lawmakers will likely move forward with their version of an affordability bill at some point in the new year. (See Stakeholders Mixed on Massachusetts Energy Affordability Bill.)

The press release from the Synapse report notably included a statement from Cusack, who said the analysis demonstrates that “solar and energy storage are incredible levers that the commonwealth can pull to deliver utility bill savings, winter reliability and climate benefits to the state’s residents.”

Clean energy advocates have expressed support for select aspects of Cusack’s legislation, including provisions that would give the state greater clean energy procurement authority, raise the municipal cap on solar net-metering and lower barriers to surplus interconnection service.

“To help realize these benefits, we are prioritizing legislation this session that will eliminate barriers blocking these cost-competitive resources,” Cusack said. “We look forward to collaborating with our state government, clean energy industry and environmental partners to pass meaningful legislation.”

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MISO Tempers 2026 Budget Plan

INDIANAPOLIS — MISO has trimmed its annual budget and is now expecting to spend a little less than $431 million in 2026, down from almost $450 million.

MISO’s $430.7 million budget includes $394.7 million dedicated to its base operating expenses and $36 million reserved for project investments. The RTO said the spending increase is driven by employee-related increases and technological improvements.

At MISO’s Dec. 11 board meeting, CEO John Bear said the RTO was able to scrape together a $15 million permanent savings in the budget. (See MISO Requests Nearly $450M Budget for 2026.)

“We know it’s your money, and we respect that,” Board of Directors Chair Todd Raba told stakeholders, adding that MISO has implemented some “pretty good cost control” measures in 2025.

CFO Melissa Brown said MISO was able to lower its budget by trimming some outside services from its base operating expenses and cut $9 million from its project investments by taking on some work internally and extending the design and planning phase of some projects to delay spending on implementation.

“We’re trying to be more efficient in how we use our money,” Brown told the board’s Audit and Finance Committee on Dec. 4.

MISO is poised to end 2025 spending $370.5 million on base operating expenses — $700,000, or 0.2%, under the 2025 budget — and $38 million in project investments (right on budget).

Brown said MISO’s purchase of its Carmel, Ind., headquarters in 2024 saved approximately $2 million in 2025.

At its Dec. 11 meeting, the board inducted new transmission owner Sam Houston Electric Cooperative, a Texas-based rural cooperative, and non-transmission members Pegasus Energy Futures, a power marketer; Spanish utility Bahia de Plata Holdco SL, which would become a competitive transmission developer in MISO; and transmission developer Longview Infrastructure Wisconsin.

The board unanimously elected director Barbara Krumsiek as board chair in 2026.

MISO replaced longtime board counsel Karl Zobrist with newcomer Marilee Springer, a lawyer with firm Faegre Drinker who specializes in providing outside general counsel to tax-exempt organizations, organizations for social change, wealthy families and donors, and “quasi-governmental entities.”

“We look forward to relentlessly torturing you,” Board Chair Todd Raba joked.

Zobrist is retiring at the end of the year. He has been a fixture in MISO since 1998, before the RTO had a name, and was MISO’s first president and director.

Board Approves IMM Budget

Relatedly, the Markets Committee of the MISO Board of Directors unanimously approved the Independent Market Monitor’s $10.6 million monitoring budget for 2026 on Dec. 9. The committee initially told IMM David Patton he didn’t provide enough detail behind the numbers to gain approval. (See MISO Board Orders More Detail into Monitor’s 2026 Budget.)

Patton specified his $5.9 million base monitoring budget includes monitoring market participant conduct, evaluating market outcomes and anomalies, evaluating operations, establishing reference levels, monitoring the capacity auction, attending meetings, managing data and publishing reports.

Patton broke out other aspects of the budget, including a combined $1.6 million for software, a little more than $1 million for IT and security, $850,000 on market design initiatives and $725,000 dedicated to FERC matters and investigations, among other smaller expenses.

Patton said the Monitor had to take on larger software costs in 2026 to keep up with MISO’s new market platform. The budget also assumes Patton will spend $100,000 over the year assessing transmission planning, a role FERC ruled he could take on after MISO’s resisted the idea.

Patton said his increase in service costs tracks inflation, at about 3.5 to 3.7% in the past two years. He also said PJM monitoring services cost about 65% more than MISO’s.

MISO Director Bob Lurie thanked the IMM for furnishing a more detailed budget.

“We’re going to continue to be doing our due diligence with this and see where we can gain efficiencies in the future,” Lurie said.

MISO Director Trip Doggett said the board held several closed-door discussions on the numbers with the IMM.

Patton said creating the line items took considerable time. He said he hoped he could provide this information to the board “in the future with less effort.”

Patton said the mitigation he provides far outweighs his budget requests. He said he is directly involved in real-time revenue sufficiency guarantee savings of more than $120 million annually and additionally delivers harder-to-quantify market improvements.

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MISO Usage, Outages Up in Fall 2025

MISO and its Independent Market Monitor tracked a rise in energy consumption in fall 2025 and reviewed operational rough patches, while the RTO explained why its machine-learning risk predictor remains a work in progress.

The updates were part of an annual fall review to the MISO Board of Directors at a Dec. 9 Markets Committee meeting.

Executive Director of System Operations J.T. Smith said average load was a couple of gigawatts higher than in other recent autumns. As a result, Smith said congestion and uplift payments trended higher.

Smith told the board that he and MISO leadership would scrutinize whether the usage increase is poised to become a long-term trend.

The MISO system averaged 73 GW over the fall. It peaked Sept. 16 at 106 GW, short of MISO’s 110-GW prediction.

MISO’s average daily generation outages veered higher, at 52 GW, 7 to 8 GW higher than in 2023 and 2024.

Smith said MISO has found that its peers have experienced a similar uptick in generator unavailability after reaching out to them. “This isn’t just a MISO phenomenon.”

Monitor Carrie Milton said MISO recorded a 2% increase in average load compared to the previous autumn. She said MISO’s average $39.29/MWh real-time price over the season was 44% higher when compared to 2024 because of gas prices that crept beyond $3/MMBtu.

During a public comment period before the meeting concluded, Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Joe Sullivan said he believed MISO leadership and board members didn’t focus enough on the 44% rise in energy prices. Sullivan urged them to spend more time discussing affordability and resource diversity to combat the hefty influence of natural gas on MISO wholesale prices.

Milton drew attention to MISO’s ramping challenges as its solar fleet now is capable of 14.5-GW peaks.

Milton said MISO’s more dramatic ramping needs in the evening have increased the frequency of operating reserve shortages, which doubled from fall 2024 to fall 2025 and occur mostly from 5-7 p.m. ET. She said MISO renewable forecasting appears to miss when solar and wind generation drop off for the evening. Milton reported that MISO experienced operating reserve shortages on seven days, including one 40-minute event Sept. 25 where prices averaged $3,150/MWh.

Milton said MISO should establish a floor on its short-term reserve requirement so there is enough short-term supply to go around should MISO’s largest contingency occur.

Milton also praised “MISO operators’ swift actions” on Sept. 16, when the RTO was forced to declare a local transmission emergency after a 500-kV line unexpectedly went offline for two hours in southeastern Louisiana. (See IMM Advises Better Constraint Management After MISO Tx Emergency.)

“This is the third transmission emergency in the South since May,” Milton said.

MISO scrounged up 700 MW to serve load and avoid blackouts during the emergency. It sent some resources into their emergency ranges and manually redispatched a large nuclear unit, two steam units and a solar facility, racking up nearly $800,000 in day-ahead market assurance payments, Milton said.

Finally, the IMM said it has noticed that some transmission owners in MISO Midwest are slow to switch from summer line ratings to their more relaxed winter ratings in fall. Milton said one MISO Midwest transmission owner’s constraint amassed $63 million in congestion from Oct. 1 until the TO moved to winter ratings on Dec. 1.

“Switching to a winter rating earlier — or adjusting for temperature — would have virtually eliminated this congestion,” Milton said.

Risk Predictor not Quite There Yet

MISO’s risk prediction machine learning model failed to predict MISO’s six highest risk days over the fall, Smith reported.

“In fall, we were zero for six,” he said wryly. Smith said the risk prediction model is more accurate in the winter, when weather correlates more closely with system risk.

Smith said the model struggles, for instance, to understand why MISO would experience high thermal outages or low wind output “in the fall, when you have a 70-degree day under blue skies.” He also said the model’s prediction capability for transmission system congestion is not yet accurate.

Smith hypothesized the model would improve as it receives more data inputs on MISO’s off seasons and has a chance to mature.

“We’re very early in this usage. It’s telling us that there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Smith said.

“It certainly jumps off the page that there were six high-risk days, and none of them were correct,” MISO director Barbara Krumsiek said, adding jokingly that the topic could be brought up later in the day at the Human Resources Committee of the MISO Board.

Director Theresa Wise asked staff to explain its “enthusiasm” behind being “zero for six,” drawing laughs from stakeholders.

Smith said the model is “adding value in situational awareness” as it evolves and is helping MISO better anticipate its risk profile in the day-ahead, even though it failed to name the highest-risk days over the fall. He said MISO “recognizes that the model is still in its infancy.”

“It’s giving us a one-hour peak prediction on a day-to-day basis,” Smith said.

MISO has been using the risk prediction model for about a year.

Smith closed by telling board members MISO is prepared for a winter that likely will contain above-average temperatures in MISO South, while normal temperatures prevail in the Midwest alongside active precipitation in the Great Lakes region.

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MISO Members: Large Loads are Certain, Require Rules Against Cross-subsidization

INDIANAPOLIS — MISO members don’t doubt that large loads will turn up at the beginning of the next decade and are occupied with how the industry can make sure ratepayers don’t subsidize supersized customers.

MISO’s Advisory Committee discussed large load integration at its quarterly Dec. 10 meetup, part of MISO Board Week.

“It’s a pleasure to be here to talk about this very minor issue,” MISO Executive Director of Markets and Grid Research DL Oates joked as he introduced the topic.

Coalition of Midwest Power Producers’ Travis Stewart said large loads are a matter of when, not if. He said most of the loads that have requested connection in MISO and are being studied are expected to be online beginning in 2030.

“These years are just around the corner, and we need the infrastructure to support them,” Stewart said.

Alliant Energy’s Mitch Myhre said his company is confident loads will materialize in a magnitude that couldn’t be understood a decade ago. He joked that back in the 1980s, Dr. Emmett Brown discovered that just 1.21 GW was the key to time travel.

MISO itself is anticipating approximately 60% load growth from 2025 to 2044.

Aaron Tinjum, Data Center Coalition | © RTO Insider LLC

Aaron Tinjum, guest speaker and vice president of energy at the Data Center Coalition, said data center developers consider several aspects to site a data center — tax and regulatory environment and access to IT and construction skilled labor — but he said above all, data centers prioritize access to reliable power.

“Preference No. 1 would always be to locate on the grid and be part of it,” Tinjum said. But he said self-supplied power “makes its way into the equation” if constraints are too tight and the wait is too long.

Tinjum said there’s a perception that data center developers are opposed to consumer protections; however, he said developers welcome provisions such as minimum exit fees, contract requirements and stranded asset guardrails “as long as they’re rooted in evidence.”

Affordability Concerns

Illinois Commerce Commissioner Michael Carrigan said consumer affordability and making sure large loads pay their costs is paramount for state regulators. Carrigan said there’s been a recent increase in intervenors speaking before the commission on affordability, representing “people on the lowest rungs of economic ladder.”

Carrigan told other stakeholders that developers should moderate some of their speed to power expectations because regulations take time, as is proper.

“I’d never call it speedy,” Carrigan said of the regulatory process, emphasizing that commissions must do due diligence before signing off on plans.

Illinois Commerce Commissioner Michael Carrigan | © RTO Insider LLC

Luke Kinder, attorney for the Arkansas Public Service Commission, pointed out that state commissioners have minimal control over the costs associated with the transmission projects needed to serve large loads.

But Michigan Public Service Commissioner Dan Scripps said MISO’s long-range transmission cost allocation that’s rooted in a load ratio share is fitting for the moment. Scripps said MISO designed the allocation with a usage rate knowing that transmission users would change over time. Scripps said new large loads are “proving out the wisdom behind that strategy.”

Jim Dauphinais, an attorney for multiple industrial end-use customers in MISO, said connection agreements today seem to overlook “back-end risks.” He said data centers’ rate contracts typically cover only a 10- or 15-year term.

“But the assets that are being added have a much longer life, and they’ve only depreciated so much at the end of the contract,” Dauphinais said.

Clean Grid Alliance’s Beth Soholt questioned data centers’ commitment to sustainability goals. She pointed out that MISO’s interconnection queue fast lane is overwhelmingly filled with natural gas generation projects.

“So which wins, fast or clean?” Soholt asked Tinjum.

Tinjum said it “doesn’t have to be an either/or” situation, but he conceded that “speed is the overriding factor in many ways.”

“That doesn’t mean the sustainability goals are thrown out. I don’t think it’s coming completely at the expense of clean energy,” he said.

Tinjum said developers are pushing for “firm, clean energy,” including small modular reactors, batteries and geothermal resources in some cases.

Tinjum said the “tailwind behind the data center development” is unprecedented demand for data-centered services, like Ring doorbells and smart thermostats at home and videoconference meetings at work.

MISO is mulling allowing interconnection agreements where generation is barred from injecting on the MISO system to get co-located load and generation up and running faster. (See MISO Floats ‘Zero Injection’ Agreements to Bring Co-located Gen Online.)

Oates said zero-injection GIAs would reduce the overall transmission needed to serve growing load. He added the agreements would be useful only for generation with plans to be situated at the same spot as the load facility.

WEC Energy Group’s Chris Plante suggested MISO consider extending the temporary expedited queue process for states’ necessary generation projects. He said the first two cycles show the queue fast lane is working well. (See MISO Accepts 6 GW of Mostly Gas Gen in 2nd Queue Fast Lane Class.)

But Wisconsin Public Service Commissioner Marcus Hawkins said the Organization of MISO States likely would be against extending the queue fast lane.

“MISO should dedicate focus to fix the existing queue,” Hawkins said.

Queue Work

MISO reported that it’s making progress bringing new generation online.

The grid operator said it has completed 47 generator interconnection agreements representing about 30 GW during 2025. Vice President of System Planning Aubrey Johnson said MISO would double that amount in 2026 with the assistance of Pearl Street’s automated SUGAR (Suite of Unified Grid Analyses with Renewables) study software. (See MISO: New Software Effective, Faster than Previous Queue Study Process.)

At a Dec. 9 System Planning Committee meeting, Johnson said MISO will conduct “SUGAR rushes,” or orientations with developers to get them acquainted with MISO’s reworked study process in 2026.

Yet, Johnson warned that MISO has amassed 70 GW of approved interconnection projects that have not been built. That’s up from MISO’s longstanding 50 GW. About 60% of the waiting generation are solar projects.

MISO leadership emphasized the unbuilt generation throughout Board Week.

Senior Vice President Andre Porter said delayed projects make up nearly 50% (32 GW) of overall approved generator interconnection agreements. He said more should be done to complete network upgrades and overcome supply chain issues and siting delays.

“There’s a significant opportunity for speed,” Porter urged developers.

MISO CEO John Bear echoed the request that members prioritize getting as much of the 70 GW online as soon as possible. “We’d like to work through that with you all,” he said at a Dec. 11 board meeting.

The Union of Concerned Scientists’ Sam Gomberg told MISO that it shouldn’t rush so much to support large loads that it sacrifices reliability.

“If the lights go out, we’re going to find ourselves in a world of finger pointing and in a hole,” Gomberg warned.

Oates said MISO moving forward would update a long-term load forecast annually to have a better idea of what it and members need to do.

MISO will hold a stakeholder workshop dedicated to large loads Jan. 30. Oates said MISO would hold more workshops on large loads throughout 2026.

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Pathways Takes Key Step Toward Establishing ROWE

The West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative’s Launch Committee approved the bylaws and incorporation documents for the organization that will govern CAISO’s energy markets, in a step marking the “culmination of over two years of work,” according to the committee’s co-chairs.

The committee’s members voted unanimously Dec. 12 to approve the certificate of incorporation for the Regional Organization for Western Energy (ROWE). The committee plans to file the certificate in Delaware in January and register as a nonprofit with the IRS shortly thereafter.

The IRS filing will include ROWE’s three-year budget, business plan and conflicts of interest summaries, along with the newly approved bylaws.

“With today’s vote, the Pathways Initiative Launch Committee has adopted the official incorporation documents for the new [ROWE], creating a foundation that includes the critical public interest focus and independent structure included in the Pathways Final Proposal,” Launch Committee co-chairs Pam Sporborg, of Portland General Electric, and Kathleen Staks, of Western Freedom, said in a joint statement.

“This vote also represents the culmination of over two years of work by committed volunteers and stakeholders who served on the Launch Committee or contributed input and insights throughout the process, and we are so grateful for the hours and support,” the co-chairs said.

ROWE will be the product of California Assembly Bill 825, which implements the Pathways Initiative’s “Step 2” plan to create an independent organization to oversee CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market and soon-to-be-launched Extended Day-Ahead Market — and authorizes the ISO and California’s investor-owned utilities to join ROWE. (See Newsom Signs Calif. Pathways Bill into Law.)

One goal in establishing ROWE was to remove what some see as a barrier to wider participation in CAISO-run markets by ensuring they are not governed solely by officials and stakeholders in California.

Pathways’ Formation Committee is in the process of hiring an executive search firm to vet candidates to seat ROWE’s initial five-member board in July. (See Pathways Initiative Exploring Funding Options, Issues RFP to Staff ROWE.)

The board selection is an important step in giving ROWE independent oversight, especially in negotiations with CAISO over tariff modifications to shift responsibility of the markets to the organization, Staks noted during the Dec. 12 meeting.

“That initial board gives us and … the new regional organization that independent oversight,” Staks said. “It gives its own identity, and it creates that truly independent entity for the negotiations for all of these various work streams that will enable us to fully implement the Pathways proposal.”

The goal is to file the tariff with FERC by the end of 2027, according to presentation slides.

The launch committee is also working on transitioning CAISO’s Regional Issues Forum into the Pathways Initiative’s Stakeholder Representatives Committee, which will provide advisory support to ROWE’s board, Staks noted. (See Pathways Co-chair Maps out ‘Enhanced’ Stakeholder Process for Western Markets.)

Funding continues to be a focus for Pathways with the launch committee seeking $7 million to $8 million in start-up costs for ROWE. The costs are associated with the executive search firm, initial board members and staff members, and legal support, Staks said.

The committee is exploring funding primarily through stakeholder contributions, grants and debt financing.

Some stakeholders have already signed pledge forms to contribute to the initiative, according to Staks.

“We are also having some conversations with some foundations about some philanthropic support for this work and are optimistic that we will see some grants to support a portion of our funding gap as well,” Staks said. “And then, we are pursuing some debt financing options that we’re hoping to have in place sometime next year to cover those remaining gaps that will get us where we need to be by the time we get our … ongoing funding through the tariff, hopefully in early 2028.”

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SERC: East, Central Subregions Face Elevated Risk in Severe Weather

Two SERC Reliability subregions face elevated risk of energy shortfalls if they experience severe conditions this winter, though all subregions should have enough resources under normal conditions, according to the regional entity’s recently released 2025 Winter Reliability Assessment.

SERC releases its WRA each December as a companion to NERC’s WRA, providing “a deeper regional dive into topics” relevant to the Southeast and covering the months of December, January and February. NERC’s assessment, released Nov. 18, found “pockets of elevated risk” across North America due in part to demand growth outstripping generation additions since last winter. (See NERC Winter Reliability Assessment Finds Many Regions Facing Elevated Risk.)

In a Dec. 11 webinar accompanying the release of SERC’s assessment, the RE’s Senior Reliability Advisor Heather Polzin said the report’s findings are largely consistent with those of NERC’s WRA. All of SERC’s seven subregions are at or above the 15% minimum reference margin under the region’s 50/50 load forecast, which denotes a 50% chance that the actual load will be higher or lower than predicted. Five are expected to meet the reference margin in the 90/10 forecast, meaning a 10% chance that the actual load is higher than predicted.

The two exceptions are the Central subregion — which includes all or parts of Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia — and the East, which includes North and South Carolina. Both regions were assessed as “elevated” risk under the 90/10 scenario because their reserves are projected at 7% for Central and 8% for East. These figures are below the 15% minimum to be considered low risk, though above the 6% reserve considered high risk.

Polzin reminded listeners of the increasing frequency of extreme weather in recent years; the assessment included data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing the five-year average annual cost of climate disasters grew from around $58 billion in 1980 to more than $500 billion in 2024. Referring to recent winter storms, she warned that utilities may not be as lucky as they have been in the past.

SERC projected winter regional demand and resources | SERC

“In Winter Storm Elliott, although it didn’t last an especially long time, the storm’s immense size meant that … entities couldn’t obtain assistance from those that they might normally have counted on,” Polzin said. “During Winter Storm Uri, they were fortunate that the storm was not more widespread, so that a lot of power could be imported from east to west … but grid entities need to plan and prepare for a storm that could be both large and long-lasting, in which they may not have access to emergency resources.”

Across the SERC footprint, utilities reported nearly 317 GW of generating capacity for the winter season. Natural gas makes up about 178 GW, with coal accounting for 60 GW and nuclear 43 GW. Hydropower follows with 12 GW, pumped storage with 9 GW, oil with 6 GW and wind at 2 GW. Energy storage, biomass, solar and other generation all make up 1 GW or less.

SERC’s team also performed an independent transmission assessment for both the 50/50 and 90/10 load forecasts, incorporating planned transmission and generation outages for winter. The team concluded that wide-area weather-related transmission events were unlikely and subregions “are expected to perform reliably” during the season. Although “SERC East and SERC Southeast had certain scenarios that triggered additional contingency analysis,” utilities in both subregions have mitigation strategies to address those contingencies.

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Energy Policy Debates Take Center Stage at gridCONNEXT Conference

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy is working to avoid additional generator retirements and bring new units online as the grid sees demand spiking because of new large loads coming online, acting Under Secretary of Energy Alex Fitzsimmons said at this year’s gridCONNEXT conference.

“We’re seeing a precipitous decline in resource adequacy across virtually every region, every RTO and ISO, over the next 10 years,” Fitzsimmons said at the event, held by the GridWise Alliance on Dec. 9-10. “We cannot allow that to happen if we’re going to deploy the generation we need to win the AI race and reshore manufacturing. And so, a big part of that is stopping the premature retirement — in many cases, the policy-driven premature retirement — of reliable assets that we need.”

DOE has used Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to keep several plants running this year. Fitzsimmons said that a number of utilities also have delayed retirements after the department’s actions.

“We understand the urgency of the moment, and so a big part of our strategy is to optimize the existing system,” Fitzsimmons said.

Secretary Chris Wright told attendees of a natural gas conference that DOE was considering ways to leverage backup generation that many large power customers, from big box stores to data centers, use to help balance the grid. Fitzsimmons confirmed that work.

“This has been a fascinating thought exercise,” Fitzsimmons said. “There was not one big, beautiful list of backup power like behind-the-meter generation of data centers and large industrial customers, unfortunately, and no one really knew where it was. And so, we’ve been working to compile a list of backup generators, because we know there are tens of gigawatts of backup generators, diesel, natural gas, batteries and others.”

That backup generation should not be used most of the time, but it could help to shave down peak demands on the grid and be used to avoid blackouts, he added.

Making the grid more efficient is part of that work, with DOE looking to use advanced transmission technologies to help meet load growth.

Acting Under Secretary of Energy Alex Fitzsimmons | © RTO Insider 

“The criteria that we’re applying to transmission buildout, and especially reconductoring, is targeting specific areas that have significant load growth; that have sufficient existing generations,” Fitzsimmons said. “If you reconductor a line and don’t have enough megawatts to push through it, then you haven’t done anything so that we can increase incremental load-serving capability. That’s our target.”

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) said she is focused on transmission issues in Congress after a year running the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners as its president. The conference came a couple of days before Fedorchak introduced the High-Capacity Grid Act, which would require FERC to establish a best available transmission conductor standard and then make it so utilities get guaranteed cost recovery when using that technology.

“Forecasts indicate the United States will need at least 100 GW of new power in the next five years — more than we’re anticipated to bring online,” Fedorchak said in a statement. “To meet this record demand, we need to optimize our existing infrastructure, which is exactly what the High-Capacity Grid Act does.”

Another bill Fedorchak recently introduced on transmission is the FAIR Act, which she said would prevent ratepayers from paying for transmission projects built to meet clean energy goals in other states. The bill follows a complaint filed at FERC that North Dakota signed onto over MISO’s long-range transmission plan. (See Five Republican States File FERC Complaint to Undercut $22B MISO Long-range Tx Plan.)

“Transmission is really valuable, but not all transmission is needed,” Fedorchak said at gridCONNEXT. “And if we don’t set the right signals to the market, we’re going to end up building a grid that is far more expensive than we need.”

As a member of the North Dakota Public Service Commission, Fedorchak had argued in MISO stakeholder forums that renewable generators should have to pay for transmission that brings them to market, but many such lines were included in its recent long-term plans with postage stamp cost allocations that applied to North Dakota and other states without renewable mandates.

Rep. Julie Fedorchack (R-N.D.) | © RTO Insider

“Other states have very aggressive climate goals; lines are being built to meet those, to bring on the power to help them meet those goals, and my ratepayers and many others are paying the same prices,” Fedorchak said. “It’s not fair.”

Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) said many of the actions of the Trump administration were working against energy development: Permits have been slow walked or pulled at the last minute; load guarantees have been revoked; and funding has been pulled for many programs. He said the private sector is taking note.

“A company came to me early on in this term, and they said, ‘We’re trying to figure out with our lawyers whether we need to rewrite the standard force majeure language in our contracts, because we get a force majeure out of acts of war, civil disobedience [and] change in law. We don’t have any language in there about what happens if the U.S. federal government refuses to enforce the law.’”

Congress could have done more to defend its own powers and the rule of law, but Casten said Republican leadership has declined to do so.

He also argued FERC could do more with its authority than it has, specifically noting that it has been authorized to do performance-based ratemaking for a decade and has not yet.

“FERC could exercise more authority than they have on being a permanent backstop for transmission,” Casten said. “We could push them to do that, but they’ve been a little bit reluctant to go into that. … FERC needs to be a totally independent agency, because any conversation about rate equity and cost allocation goes sideways.”

Since former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) declined to support former Chair Rich Glick for a second term, commissioners have had to pay more attention to politics, Casten said. That trend is likely to continue if the Supreme Court overturns a key precedent on agency independence. (See Supreme Court Justices Seem Skeptical on Agency Independence.)

The policy debates in Washington come as power prices have become part of an affordability crisis, Brattle Group Principal Peter Fox-Penner said. Part of his talk at the conference explained a study Brattle did with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on what has driven power price increases in some states. (See LBNL Study Examines Drivers Behind Higher Power Prices in Some States.)

While the study generally predates the boom in demand growth because of new large load customers, it found that states benefited from spreading the costs to a growing customer base, leading to lower rates for all. Adjusting for inflation, states on the coasts had prices rising more during the study’s timeline of 2019-2024.

“I think this picture is changing going forward,” Fox-Penner said. “As the data centers kind of look for cheaper power, they are gravitating to the center of the country. We see that quite a bit in our rental practice, and that is going to reduce regional disparities going forward, even though I think they will remain quite large.”

That means the affordability issues are going to be felt in more states, and consumers on the lower end of the income scale are facing tough choices. A quarter are behind on their bills; 20% set their thermostat at a temperature that is unhealthy; and 34% have to choose between which necessities to pay for: energy, food or medicine.

“These numbers are as high and as tragic as I have ever seen them in my practice, going back quite a few decades,” Fox-Penner said.

The energy poverty numbers have looked bad in the past, whether it was 2008’s great recession or the oil crisis in the 1970s, but now they are part of a broader affordability crisis facing Americans.

“That has implications for us,” Fox-Penner said. “On the one hand, we have to do as much as we can to help the situation out, because all the sectors that are experiencing these price increases have their own particular causes and their own work to do and to bring them down. But at the same time, we have to recognize that this problem is bigger than us, and we can’t solve it. We have to do our best, but it’s bigger than us, and I think macroeconomic conditions are going to figure out some of what I say going forward.”

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Costs of ISO-NE Day-ahead Ancillary Services Higher than Expected

ISO-NE’s new day-ahead ancillary services market added about $258 million in incremental costs between March and August, equal to 7.6% of total energy market costs, according to the RTO’s Internal Market Monitor (IMM).

The volatility and incremental costs have alarmed some consumer advocates and load-side participants, who have expressed concern that the market costs have been significantly higher than initial expectations.

Launched in March, ISO-NE’s new day-ahead market is intended to optimize the procurement of energy and 10- and 30-minute reserves, and ensure the region has procured enough supply to meet forecasted demand. (See FERC Approves ISO-NE’s Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Initiative.)

In its 2023 filing of the changes, the RTO wrote that the new combined day-ahead energy and ancillary services market “will clear energy and ancillary services jointly in a way that maximizes the efficient use of the region’s resources to meet day-ahead energy demand and to satisfy both the load forecast and day-ahead reserve requirements (ER24-275).”

Dónal O’Sullivan of the IMM discussed the performance of the new day-ahead market with the NEPOOL Markets Committee on Dec. 9.

He noted that meeting the day-ahead 10- and 30-minute reserve requirements was “the significant cost driver,” with these needs accounting for about $210 million of the incremental costs. These flexible response service (FRS) costs were themselves driven by high opportunity costs during the tightest days on the system, he said.

Over half of incremental costs were incurred during 10 high-load days during the summer, he noted.

“Periods of elevated FRS clearing prices occurred during high-demand periods that also had high energy market prices,” the IMM wrote in its summer markets report. “Opportunity costs can be highly impactful to FRS clearing prices during periods like this as the magnitude of the inframarginal energy market rents foregone by units that are ‘redispatched’ to satisfy reserve requirements can be large.”

The day-ahead energy and ancillary service clearing prices incorporate opportunity costs associated with selling other day-ahead products. ISO-NE wrote that this is needed “to avoid creating an incentive for suppliers to submit offer prices inconsistent with their costs in an attempt to clear for a ‘more profitable’ product.”

The high costs have not been isolated to summer price spikes. After prices dropped in September, monthly costs rebounded in October and November. ISO-NE has said this was due in part to an increase in resource outages.

‘Serious Concerns’

O’Sullivan also discussed the impacts of the new Forecast Energy Requirement (FER) constraint, which is aimed at procuring enough load to meet the day-ahead demand forecast.

This design is intended to help prevent gaps between the energy forecast and the amount of supply cleared in the day-ahead energy market. Physical resources participating in the day-ahead market earn both the clearing price — subject to closeout charges — and a separate FER price.

The IMM estimated that, without the FER constraint, the total incremental costs of the new day-ahead ancillary services market would have been about $48 million lower over the six-month period.

The day-ahead ancillary services market’s $258 million in incremental costs are well beyond ISO-NE’s initial estimates; the RTO forecast in an impact analysis that the new day-ahead products would increase energy and ancillary services costs by about $140 million annually, based on a 2019-2021 study period.

“Our office has serious concerns about the magnitude and volatility of DASI [day-ahead ancillary services initiative] costs to date, including the degree to which these costs have exceeded the ISO’s original impact analysis,” a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office wrote in a statement.

“We have and will continue to advocate for additional analysis and clarity surrounding the various components of DASI to ensure that consumers are not unfairly burdened by unnecessary or inefficient costs and to ensure that all market products and components are delivering benefits commensurate with their costs,” they added.

In response to consumer concerns about higher costs associated with the new market design, ISO-NE representatives have said they are closely following market performance but have stood by the market design and urged the need to accumulate a full year of data on the new day-ahead design before considering changes.

“We still think some time is helpful to go through the winter cycle to see how it performs in the winter,” ISO-NE COO Vamsi Chadalavada said at the NEPOOL Participants Committee meeting in December. “The objectives are not going to change. It is, for us, I think the best way to secure those services.”

ISO-NE has expressed confidence the new day-ahead market has improved grid reliability, though these benefits can be difficult to quantify.