Dive Brief:

• Southern Co. and three Missouri utilities, none of them MISO members, have filed a complaint with FERC alleging the transmission operator has charged them millions of dollars more than is reasonable to transport power across the Entergy grid, Midwest Energy News reports.
• According to the utilities, the "through-and-out" rate they pay to move power across the grid doubled in Decemver of 2013, when MISO began operating the Entergy system as part of its expansion.
• Southern Co. has indicated that the result of the complaint will likely impact its ability to bring in wind power from the Southwest, given that rates have spiked $8 million in the last two years.

Dive Insight:

Southern, along with Kansas City Power & Light, Empire District Electric Co. and Associated Electric Cooperatives Inc., say the rates MISO charges to bring power across Entergy's system have almost doubled because they are being charged for legacy costs. 

In their complaint, the companies not that "a large portion of the nation’s best wind energy capacity is located in the Southwest" and the Entergy grid (now MISO South) is seen as "a continental divide stretching from the nation’s northern border to southern border – with MISO as the gatekeeper for the delivery of western wind to Southeastern loads."

"MISO’s ability to saddle customers of the Entergy transmission system with the costs of facilities in the Legacy Region has unduly influenced the economics of any potential acquisition and delivery of clean power produced by these western wind farms to the load centers in the Southeast," the companies said.

Southern Co. said it was charged $8 million in rate increases between 2013 and 2015. Since Entergy’s integration into MISO, KCP&L said its own transmission service charges have nearly doubled (the utility had paid $6 million a year for point-to-point service). The other two utilities also indicated their rates had doubled.

MISO told Midwest Energy News, however, that the issue is not a new one and that FERC just last year was reviewing its through-and-out rates. But Southern and the Missouri utilities' complaint comes just a week after a FERC judge issued a finding that parties were not making progress on the issue.

“We are reviewing the legal arguments and plan on responding prior to June 9,” MISO spokesman Andy Schonert told Midwest Energy News.