The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requires transmission-owning companies like ATC to ensure that its planning processes embody nine principles, which are briefly summarized below. The term "customers" as it is used below refers to local utilities that take high voltage power from ATC's transmission system and distribute it to consumers.

Coordination
Transmission providers must meet with all of their transmission customers and interconnected neighbors to develop a transmission plan on a nondiscriminatory basis. The planning process must provide for the timely and meaningful input and participation of customers. 

Openness

The planning process must be open to all interested parties and must include safeguards to ensure confidentiality of transmission system information, particularly Critical Energy Infrastructure Information (“CEII”).

Transparency

Transmission providers and transmission owners are to disclose basic planning criteria, planning assumptions and planning data along with study methodologies, criteria, and processes and disclose underlying information.

Information exchange

Transmission Providers, in consultation with customers and other stakeholders, must develop information exchange guidelines and schedules for submittal of information from both network and point-to-point transmission customers.

Comparability

Each Transmission Provider is to develop a transmission plan that (1) meets the specific service requests of its transmission customers; and (2) otherwise treats similarly situated customers comparably in transmission system planning.

Dispute resolution

For transmission planning-related issues, Transmission Providers must have a dispute mechanism which is able to address both procedural and substantive technical engineering and planning issues.

Regional participation

Each Transmission Provider is required to coordinate with interconnected utilities to: (1) share system plans to ensure that they are simultaneously feasible and otherwise use consistent assumptions and data; and (2) identify system enhancements that could relieve congestion or integrate new resources.  The coordinated regional planning must be open and inclusive and address both reliability and economic considerations.

Economic planning studies

Transmission Providers are required to perform economic planning studies (1) to address both “local” congestion and congestion between control areas and sub-regions and (2) to integrate new generation resources and/or loads on an aggregated or regional basis. 

Cost allocation  

The transmission Provider’s planning process must address the allocation of costs of new facilities. This applies only to regional projects that do not fit under existing rate structures, such as regional projects involving several transmission owners or economic projects that are identified under the study process described under the economic planning studies principle.  The planning proposal should identify the types of new projects that are not covered under existing cost allocation rules.