Midwest ISO assumes management responsibility for MAIN operations
The Midwest ISO and MAIN reached a memorandum of understanding earlier this year in which MAIN agreed to turn over functional management of its operating functions to the MISO on Nov. 1, 2000. The Midwest ISO's management responsibility will be in accordance with policy as set by the MAIN board of directors.
Matthew C. Cordaro, Midwest ISO President and CEO, explained that the transfer will ensure the smooth transition to the MISO's operational date of Nov. 1, 2001. "Because the Midwest ISO will be responsible for many of the functions currently performed by MAIN, this step allows the MISO to manage the orderly transition of those functions and the associated personnel," he said.
The Mid-America Interconnected Network, Inc., headquartered in Lombard, IL, provides electricity to 19 million people in a 120,000 square mile region that includes all of Illinois and portions of Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota. MAIN's members include investor-owned utilities, cooperative systems, municipal power agencies, independent power producers, power marketers and a municipal system. Most of the MAIN transmission owners have joined the Midwest ISO.
The Midwest ISO is the nation's largest independent transmission system operator and will operate as the interface between power suppliers (generators and marketers) and local distribution companies, which ultimately deliver power to end users. In return, under an agency agreement, MISO will collect revenues under its tariff on behalf of the participating transmission owners and turn these revenues over to the transmission owners.
Utilities with more than 52,000 miles of transmission lines, 78,000 megawatts of electric generation and about $8 billion in installed assets are participating in the MISO. The transmission owners who have signed the MISO agreement are Alliant Energy, Ameren, American Transmission Company (Milwaukee, WI) Central Illinois Light Company, Cinergy, Commonwealth Edison, Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative, Illinois Power, LG&E Energy Corp., Madison Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy (formerly Northern States Power), Northwestern Wisconsin Electric Co., Southern Illinois Power Cooperative, Southern Indiana Gas & Electric, Wabash Valley Power Association, Wisconsin Electric and Wisconsin Public Service Corp.