What can we learn from its failure?
Jennifer Alvey is associate editor at Public Utilities Fortnightly.
That the end of Alliance Company's RTO dreams came swiftly is clear. Whether the denial of regional transmission organization (RTO) status to Alliance means anything outside the Midwest is anything but.
Lurking in the shadows of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) decision to crown the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO) as the RTO for the Midwest is PJM Inter-connection. About a month after FERC's decision, PJM and MISO announced plans to form a single energy market. And just prior to that, PJM submitted its application to be the Independent System Admini-strator for SeTrans, a proposed Southeast RTO.
Strangely enough, Alliance's loss may just turn out to be PJM's gain.
A Reversal of Fortune
When Alliance received its fifth conditional RTO approval in two years from FERC last July, its future looked rosy. It stood poised to be the first for-profit transmission company (transco) with outside investment that would be approved by FERC. Then FERC Chairman Curt Hébert stepped down in August, and was succeeded by Chairman Pat Wood III.