MISO wins FERC cost approval while its own project selection faces scrutiny
The cross-border cost allocation approved Friday (2026-08-14) lands while a separate FERC complaint questions whether MISO picks the right projects.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved on Friday (2026-08-14) a cost allocation framework for transmission projects sought by MISO but built inside PJM's territory, naming Exelon's Commonwealth Edison among the utilities set to bear costs under the structure.7
Most attention has settled on FERC's approval as a straightforward regulatory advance for interregional transmission. The complications are less visible. American Transmission Co. filed a complaint with FERC during the week of June 22 (2026-06-22) alleging that MISO mishandled the competitive solicitation for a $350 million power line and four substations in Wisconsin, accusing the grid operator of procedural failures in a bidding process designed to produce least-cost outcomes.4
The two proceedings turn on the same question. A cross-regional cost recovery framework built on MISO's project selection process is only as defensible as that process itself. If FERC rules in ATC's favor, the integrity of how MISO identifies projects for PJM-sited development faces scrutiny at precisely the moment FERC has formally extended its cost-recovery authority. Ratepayers allocated costs under the approved framework, including ComEd customers, would have limited means to revisit allocations already set.4,7
MISO real-time markets are carrying a contrarian bullish signal against a prevailing bearish consensus — outages are cited as the driver. MISO Indiana Hub spot cleared $44.52/MWh on Tuesday (2026-08-18) while PJM Western Hub spot printed $78.03/MWh on the same date, a spread exceeding $33/MWh between the two neighboring footprints. That differential lends credibility to the general case for cross-regional transmission. But outage-driven congestion is episodic, and building cross-border projects around peak spreads rather than average conditions is a cost modeling assumption. MISO's forecasting of project need sits at the center of the ATC dispute.1
PJM has struggled to bring new generation online. Since 2024, PJM capacity auctions have cleared just under 4 gigawatts of newly built and uprated capacity, well below the roughly 20 gigawatts added in the five prior auctions combined, Canary Media reported.5 Transmission links between MISO and PJM gain urgency in that environment. But the same generation shortfall means infrastructure being cost-allocated to ComEd ratepayers is entering a market under compounding stress.
Five state ratepayer advocates argued in July (2026-07-21) that FERC's data center connection framework for PJM inadequately shields existing consumers from data center-driven transmission costs.6 FERC has separately ordered all six regional grid operators to justify or rewrite their large-load tariffs, a process affecting roughly 200 million Americans across more than 30 states, FERC staff said.3 Those reviews are ongoing. Their outcome shapes how data center-driven wires investment costs flow across rate classes, a question the August 14 (2026-08-14) framework does not address.
NERC's February 2026 interregional transfer capability study, transmitted by FERC to Congress, recommended 35,000 MW of technically prudent additions across ten regions projected to face resource deficiencies by 2033.2 Friday's (2026-08-14) approval addresses a narrow portion of that gap. Equipment supply constrains the rest: Wood Mackenzie's 2025 modeling estimated roughly $1.8 billion in announced North American manufacturing expansions should ease the large-power-transformer shortage by 2028, though distribution-transformer lead times from brokers remained elevated through late 2025.2 Projects cleared under the MISO-PJM framework will face hardware timelines that regulatory calendars cannot compress.
The outcome of the ATC complaint is the cleaner test of Friday's (2026-08-14) framework. A FERC ruling against MISO's Wisconsin solicitation process would land directly on the procedural integrity the cost-recovery approval assumes. Whether ComEd ratepayers are bearing costs for least-cost, properly selected projects, or for something that did not survive competitive scrutiny, is what the approved framework leaves open.4,7