What's Happening in Energy highlights the most interesting findings from public utility commission filings.
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What's Happening in Energy — Nov 13
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Large Loads Coming Soon // MTEP26 // MISO
MISO’s draft Transmission Expansion Plan (MTEP26) for 2026 includes projects necessary to interconnect 26 GW of approved large load additions. Here is the large load in-service timeline through 2030:
Halcyon covered the draft report in a prior WHiE, but the numbers bear repeating: $14.7 billion of total investment, 54% of which is related to large loads. The remaining 46% ($6.8 billion) is on par with investments in prior plans without significant load growth, according to MISO.
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Load Requests Go Vertical // Expedited Project Reviews // MISO
MISO defended one of its core proposals in response to FERC’s Show Cause Order to expedite large load interconnection requests: the Load Addition Resource Study (LARS). This new process for large loads would unclog the Expedited Project Review queue by studying loads greater than 200 megawatts that have associated generation. A notable chart from the filing shows MISO’s approved Expedited Project Review (EPR) requests since 2021. Both the size and the cost of EPR projects have increased substantially. The blue and green bars have different units tied to the y-axis scale, so 2026 cost is roughly $7,500 million (i.e. $7.5 billion) and 2026 load is roughly 26 GW. The red line is more straightforward: project count is on the right-axis.
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A New Giant in the West // NorthWestern // Black Hills // Montana
The Montana Public Service Commission is nearing its vote on the merger application from Black Hills and NorthWestern. If approved, NorthWestern would ultimately become a subsidiary of the renamed Black Hills:Bright Horizon Energy. The proposed decision from Staff includes a chart of the two applicants’ service territories. Seen together, it’s clear that the merger would create a new giant in the west: over 2.1 million customers, 38,000 miles of electric lines, 59,000 miles of gas T&D, and 2.9 gigawatts of generation.
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Coal-to-Gas Conversion // White Bluff Unit 1 // Entergy Arkansas
Entergy Arkansas (EAL) filed sur-surrebuttal testimony supporting its application to convert White Bluff Unit 1 from coal to gas. EAL’s Class 3 cost estimate from Worley puts the cost of conversion in 2029 at $365/kW. In response to questions about the 2027-2029 47% compound cost escalation factor it used, EAL responded:
“In my view, the escalation rate applied to the Welsh conversion costs is conservative – it is not high in the current market environment. EAL Sur-surrebuttal Exhibit SM-1 includes industry articles that highlight the unprecedented cost escalation rates being experienced in the power industry – escalation rates much higher than what I used to escalate the Welsh cost estimates.”
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25-year non-Data Center Large Load Contract // Arizona Public Service
Arizona Public Service applied to the Arizona Corporation Commission for approval of a 25-year Direct Pricing Contract to recover costs to serve up to 1.88 gigawatts of load from “TSMC Arizona Corporation”. Many of the contract provisions sound familiar at this point: fixed capacity charges backed by collateral, exit fees, direct assignment, construction work in progress financing. What’s unique: all provisions are with a single semiconductor manufacturer expanding operations in Arizona, rather than a new data center coming to town. APS is dedicating an army of infrastructure to power the project:
If you want the view from inside APS, Ted Geisler and I talked about this kind of large-load growth at length on Nameplate, including what it takes to build that much generation for a single customer.
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2028-2029 Planning // Planning Reserve Margins // LOLE // California
California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Staff from the Energy Division presented the final report with the results of the Loss-of-Load Expectation (LOLE) study for the “Slice of Day” (SOD) Resource Adequacy program in 2028-2029. Base case results show that CAISO has a 6,000 MW surplus in the peak month of that planning year. Staff recommend a Planning Reserve Margin of accredited capacity (i.e. Unforced Capacity or UCAP) of 16% from May through September and 14% from October through April. Read Halcyon’s explanation of the SOD methodology used by CPUC Staff.
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Four-year System Improvement Plan // SWEPCO // Louisiana
The Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) and Staff from the Louisiana Public Service Commission reached an agreement on a four-year System Improvement Plan (SIP) for SWEPCO to recover system hardening and vegetation management costs through a rider. SWEPCO and Staff filed a motion for Commission approval. The four-year plan, if approved, would total $313.2 million. Here’s the breakdown by year and category.
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Invenergy // Interregional HVDC Transmission // MISO // FERC
Invenergy Transmission filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission arguing that MISO’s tariff is unjust and unreasonable. The rationale? MISO’s tariff does not compensate developers of interregional high-voltage direct current transmission for the capacity the lines provide.
Invenergy argues that MISO’s use of the capacity provided by interregional HVDC in setting the Planning Reserve Margin (PRM) it uses for the Planning Reserve Auction amounts to “socializing” the benefits across MISO because the transmission developer is not compensated. The developer argues that allowing capacity accreditation of these lines would improve its ability to negotiate contracts for the Grain Belt Express.
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No on LLESA // Microsoft // NV Energy
Microsoft filed a brief urging the Nevada Public Utilities Commission to pursue a standard large load tariff instead of the Large Load Electric Service Agreements (LLESAs) NV Energy has proposed. These LLESAs contain the customer-specific details on load ramp, minimum billing obligations, collateral requirements, and interconnection cost responsibilities between NV Energy and large load customers. The tech company wants the Commission to open a separate proceeding to investigate the form that a standardized tariff would take. It argues that the LLESAs contain rates that did not undergo the public review and diligence that Nevada law requires.
“NV Energy could have made a filing and obtained Commission approval of the rates it seeks to charge large load customers in an open and public process, well in advance of its filing of the Application in this proceeding. It chose not to, and due to that choice, the LLESA’s rates cannot be approved in this proceeding.”
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Network Upgrade Delays // Active Portfolio // SPP
SPP published its Q4 2026 report on its network upgrade portfolio with a pie chart breaking out the projects by their status. An interesting chart breaks down the amount of in-service date changes and cost changes across utilities. East Texas Electric Cooperative (ETEC) and Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OGE) have a high percentage of in-service date changes.
However, both ETEC and OGE do better on cost changes. Southwestern Public Service (SPS) has had over 40 cost changes for projects in the current active portfolio.
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Construction Permit Issued // X-energy // Dow // NRC
Dow Chemical subsidiary Long Mott Energy received its permit to construct four small modular reactors in Calhoun County, Texas, to produce 800 MW of heat and electricity using X-energy’s High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor technology. After having its contentions against the license rejected by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper has now had its petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) denied. That cleared the way for a construction permit from the NRC. Track the docket here.
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New Docket of the Week
765 kV Line for PORTS-Pike // AEP Ohio // Stargate // Ohio
AEP Ohio Transmission filed its pre-application letter with the Public Utilities Commission for the 765-kV line from the Baku substation to the Adkins substation. AEP expects to begin construction on this line in October 2028 and put it into service by December 2030. This is another major piece of SoftBank/OpenAI’s planned roughly 10 GW PORTS-Pike data center in Piketon, Ohio. Track the docket here, and track the existing Baku substation docket here. The docket for the Adkins substation has not yet been created.
Excerpt(s) of the Week
Most clicked from last week’s WHiE