MISO has announced that Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois will lead development of the Fairport-to-Denny-to-IA/MO State Border 345 kV Competitive Transmission Project. Ameren included a partnership with The Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission d/b/a Missouri Electric Commission (MJMEUC) as a participant in its proposal. This project is the second competitively bid project from the Long Range Transmission Planning (LRTP) Tranche 1 portfolio approved by MISO’s board of directors last year.
“Ameren’s proposal, submitted with its partner MJMEUC, had a substantially lower cost than that of the next closest proposal which was 36% higher based on the annual costs to customers over 40 years,” said Jeremiah Doner, MISO’s director of cost allocation and competitive transmission. “The proposal also features strong cost containment and a sound design.”
The Ameren Transmission proposal includes an estimated project implementation cost of $84 million (in nominal dollars) for a new Denny substation near the existing Fairport substation and two 345 kV transmission lines. The first 345 kV line will extend 42 miles from Denny to the Missouri/Iowa State Border and the second 345 kV line will connect the Denny substation to the Fairport substation.
“Ameren will now move forward on executing the Selected Developer Agreement following a rigorous competitive selection process that included nine proposals from four developers to construct, own, operate and maintain the project,” said Doner. “We look forward to working closely with the developer, regulators and other stakeholders to support a successful and on-time completion of the project.”
MISO evaluates proposals based on cost and design, project implementation, operations and maintenance, and transmission planning participation – all relevant factors in ensuring project success. MISO used the established criteria and competitive selection process as described in its Tariff to evaluate proposals, and ultimately to select the developer.
MISO issued a request for project proposals on Dec. 5, 2022, and developers had until May 19, 2023, to complete submissions. This is the second of five competitive projects identified out of LRTP Tranche 1 to complete the competitive selection process. The competitive selection process for the remaining three will continue through the first half of 2024. The project is expected to be in service by 2030. The complete selection report for the project is available on MISO’s Competitive Transmission webpage.
LRTP is a component of MISO’s Response to the Reliability Imperative – the shared responsibility of MISO and its stakeholders to address the urgent and complex challenges to the electric grid.
