Opinion ID: 1373126
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: MISO and the Transmission of Energy Across the ITS to RPGI Members

Text: In November of 1999, Alliant joined MISO. Shortly thereafter, Alliant filed an application with the FERC seeking the FERC's approval to grant MISO functional control over many of its high-voltage transmission facilities, including Alliant's portion of the ITS. Notably, the application listed some CIPCO facilities as facilities whose functional control would be transferred to MISO under the transaction. In response, CIPCO intervened and objected to the attempted transfer of control over its facilities to MISO. In March of 2000, the FERC approved Alliant's application, but only insofar as Alliant transferred control over its own facilities to MISO. See Alliant Energy Corporate Servs., Inc., 90 FERC ¶ 61,344, 62,134 (Mar. 31, 2000) (In this order we are only approving the transfer to the [MISO] of the facilities that Alliant Energy actually owns.); see also Cent. Iowa Power Co-op. v. Midwest Indep. Transmission Sys. Operator, Inc., 110 FERC ¶ 61,093, 61,392 (Feb. 7, 2005) ([I]n Alliant, the Commission emphasized that it was authorizing the transfer of only the jurisdictional facilities that Alliant owned.). Accordingly, MISO now functionally controls transmission service over and on Alliant's transmission system. Because MISO controls the Alliant transmission facilities that are interconnected with CIPCO's facilities in the ITS, MISO allegedly causes electricity to flow over CIPCO's transmission system without authority from CIPCO and without compensating CIPCO for the use of CIPCO's lines and related facilities to serve members of RPGI. In addition to transferring functional control of its transmission facilities (but not CIPCO's) to MISO, in January of 2002, Alliant also assigned some of its transmission-service agreements to MISO. Alliant assigned to MISO a 1998 agreement that it had entered into with MidAmerican Energy Company (MidAmerican), a wholesale power supplier. The 1998 agreement (forged before Alliant joined MISO) required Alliant to provide transmission service to MidAmerican from January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2003. MidAmerican had entered into the agreement with Alliant in order to deliver power to the members of RPGI, which are small Iowa cities and the small electric utilities owned by Iowa municipalities located across the state. From January of 1999 to January of 2002, before the 2002 assignment of the Alliant-MidAmerican agreement to MISO occurred, Alliant had fulfilled its obligation under the agreement with MidAmerican by using CIPCO's transmission system within the ITS to deliver energy from MidAmerican to the RPGI members. After the assignment, from January of 2002 to the end of 2003, MISO took over Alliant's obligation and allegedly used CIPCO's system within the ITS to transmit energy from MidAmerican to the RPGI members. In January of 2004, RPGI discontinued its supply agreement with MidAmerican and agreed to purchase wholesale power for its members from a subsidiary of the Ameren Corporation. Eventually, RPGI came to an independent agreement with MISO for transmission of the power it was now purchasing from Ameren. Pursuant to these agreements, MISO delivered energy from Amerenallegedly using the ITS and CIPCO's systemto RPGI members from January 1, 2004, to January 1, 2005. In sum, CIPCO alleges that all of the energy that RPGI purchased from either MidAmerican or Ameren has been delivered to the RPGI members over the ITS, using CIPCO's elements of the ITS to accomplish the delivery. After RPGI elected to change power suppliers from MidAmerican to Ameren, CIPCO began challenging the delivery of electricity over its facilities within the ITS. At this stage of the instant litigation, the record before us does not indicate that CIPCO objected to the same service prior to the change of suppliers from MidAmerican to Ameren, or that CIPCO was being compensated for this service. Nevertheless, CIPCO asserts that the delivery of power to RPGI members necessarily utilized CIPCO's facilities and that CIPCO was not being compensated for the use of its transmission system.