Nine utilities in the Midwest and Great Plains, including two that serve Oklahoma customers want federal regulators to suspend their policy of requiring competitive bidding for billions of dollars in new High-voltage power lines.
Oklahoma Gas and Electric is one of the utilities while another is Empire District Electric Company based in Joplin, Missouri but has customers in northeast Oklahoma.
They joined two other utilities in asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to suspend the required competitive bidding across 18 states covered by the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO). The utilities filed a complaint Tuesday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that seeks to temporarily eliminate the competitive solicitation provision in FERC’s landmark Order 1000, which broadly reformed electric transmission planning and cost allocation.
What OG&E and Empire District and the others want is to pause bidding for the projects for five years or bypassed for power lines needed to quickly bring online new power plants or large energy consumers such as data centers, the very topic that has embroiled utilities in their electric power expansion projects considered by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
If the request were to be approved, it could impact nearly 910,000 customers in Oklahoma and western Arkansas served by Oklahoma Gas and Electric over a nearly 30,000-square mile area.
The Empire District Electric Company (now a Liberty Utilities company) serves approximately 4,800 retail electric customers in Oklahoma. The company, based in Joplin, Missouri, provides electricity to a total of roughly 218,000 customers across a four-state region, including Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas.
Who made the challenge?
The list of those asking for the relief are: International Transmission Co. d/b/a ITC Transmission, Michigan Electric Transmission Co., LLC, ITC Midwest LLC, and ITC Great Plains, LLC; Ameren Services Co.; American Transmission Co. LLC; Cleco Power LLC; Entergy Services, LLC; Evergy, Inc.; Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co.; The Empire District Electric Company; and Xcel Energy Services Inc., Complainants.
Requiring the competitive bidding, according to the utilities, adds 16 to 20 months to the development timeline for the transmission line projects, adding to costs for consumers. E&E News reports the request also goes against the Trump administration’s Speed to Power initiative, which aims to give the U.S. an edge over China in developing AI by enabling a rapid build-out of the grid to enable data center development. Requiring competitive bidding for transmission projects, the utilities argue, adds at least 16 to 20 months to the development timeline — delays that cost consumers and the nation’s economy.
E&E quoted Davis Strobridge, director of regulatory strategy at Michigan-based utility ITC as stating, “There are demands that are unprecedented, that are well-documented, that are on all of our systems, and we have an obligation to serve, and the competitive process is interrupting that obligation.”
The energy news group also quoted Dean Ball, senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, who contended the delays in construction of the transmission lines “does not merely shift the timeline; it fundamentally degrades U.S. competitiveness during the period most likely to prove decisive” to the AI race.
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