E-6: Commissioner Rosner’s Concurrence in Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. Docket No. ER25-1886-000

Docket Nos. ER25-1886-000, ER25-1886-001

I concur with today’s order accepting proposed revisions to MISO’s Tariff to improve the real-time visibility and the efficient procurement and operation of demand-side resources.  I do so because I believe that MISO’s submission satisfies the Commission’s “just and reasonable” requirement, specifically the baseline legal standard that when determining whether a rate is just and reasonable, the Commission need not consider “whether a proposed rate schedule is more or less reasonable than alternative rate designs.”[1]

Finding MISO’s proposed Tariff revisions to be “just and reasonable” may satisfy the requisite legal standard, but that passing grade does not always elevate the proposal to the dean’s list.  As my colleague Commissioner Chang points out in her dissent, several of MISO’s Tariff revisions may leave significant demand response resources effectively benched, for example, by virtue of some of MISO’s accreditation reforms, which may fall so onerously on some demand response providers, such as behind the meter resources, that access to MISO’s market may become significantly more burdensome.

For almost two decades, since at least Order No. 719,[2] the Commission has acknowledged, encouraged, and sought to facilitate the participation of demand resources in wholesale markets.  The Commission has made significant strides, but the untapped potential remains significant: according to the Commission’s 2025 Demand Response and Advanced Metering Report, just 6.5% of peak demand in RTO/ISOs was met by demand response resources.[3]  And the benefits of demand response participation have, if anything, increased in the current era of growing electricity demand, where the nation and this Commission have issued an all-of-the-above call for electrons from energy resources to address both near- and long-term needs.  Demand-side resources are a significant tool in the Commission’s toolbox that should be fostered and embraced in order for the Commission to meet the demands of the moment.  Every day we see more evidence that load flexibility is essential to efficiently integrating new large loads like data centers.[4]

I would be remiss if I did not also mention, respectfully, the opportunity that our state regulator colleagues have within their jurisdiction to further leverage demand response resources on behalf of their consumers.  States hold the keys needed to authorize new ways for DR to proliferate, including through, for example, retail meter data access and their ability to allow greater numbers of innovative demand response programs and business models.  Working together we can ensure that demand resources can help keep pace to stay ahead of demand and keep energy affordable and reliable for MISO customers.

For these reasons, while I approve of MISO’s Tariff revisions, I challenge MISO to do more, and to treat the impediments to deploying these resources not as an unfortunate and inevitable result of MISO’s Tariff revisions, but as a gap in MISO’s program that warrants MISO’s continuing attention.

For these reasons, I respectfully concur.