MISO's Fast Track Fills Up With Gas as Load Growth Outruns the Queue

The Midcontinent grid has opened its own express lane for power plants, and the first users have made clear what they want to build. MISO's Expedited Resource Addition Study, approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in July, drew 47 applications across 12 states with more than 26,500 MW of proposed capacity, according to the American Public Power Association. The mix is 74% natural gas, 15% battery storage, 4% wind, 4% solar and 3% nuclear.

On September 26 MISO named the first 10 projects to be studied, totaling 5,300 MW with in-service dates in 2027 and 2028. MISO delivers power across 15 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba, and says 45 million people depend on its grid. The program exists because large new loads, data centers above all, are arriving faster than MISO's regular interconnection queue can process new supply. MISO describes ERAS as a temporary, targeted solution to bring urgently needed generation online quickly amid unprecedented load growth.

MISO chief executive John Bear said the mechanism allows the grid operator to address urgent needs while preserving state authority over resource adequacy. The first 10 projects are five gas plants, three solar projects, one wind project and one battery, according to GO15, the association of large grid operators of which MISO is a member. The white paper says data centers are expected to drive most of the load growth in the near term. For utilities in MISO's southern and central states, the load shows up as specific, large customer requests.

Projects that have waited years in MISO's main queue gain nothing from ERAS, while newer projects with a verified need can move ahead of them. The program's design answers part of that concern: it is temporary, capped at 68 projects, and limited to needs that a regulator has verified. For data center developers, ERAS is a signal that MISO's utilities can secure new generation on a timeline closer to what large customers expect.