Introduction

ATC is expanding opportunities for success 

At ATC, we’re focused on delivering sustained value to our customers, stakeholders and the communities we serve. We strive for the most efficient mix of investments that will meet our customers’ needs. Those needs drive our growth, and with each investment we aim to deliver multiple values to electric utility customers to contribute to the long-term success of the regions we serve. 

A robust electric grid is a critical long-term enabler of reliable, affordable, sustainable, and secure energy for customers and communities. As a regional grid operator and the first multistate transmission-only utility in the nation, we are committed to maintaining a safe and reliable electric system in the Upper Midwest. We provide non-discriminatory access for all forms of generation. We work closely with our local electric distribution customers to provide viable solutions and plan for a system that supports their needs – and the needs of their energy consumers. Public policy and concerns over climate change are advancing the transition of generation to renewables, which means we must continually develop appropriate and cost-effective system technologies to align with the evolving energy landscape.   

We continue to work with MISO on the significant uptick in generation-to-transmission interconnection requests now in the queue. As of the end of September, there are 130 proposed projects in the generation queue within our service area, totaling over 18.5 gigawatts of capacity. The massive influx of these projects within our service area requires in-depth analysis by our planners to ensure we have adequate electric system upgrades in place to interconnect these new resources and deliver their predominantly renewable energy. Meanwhile, the distribution-to-transmission interconnection requests from our customers remain strong, as does the addition of distributed energy resources. We are also seeing large new requests from major technology companies that will add unprecedented loads to our system and could transform the energy landscape. We anticipate meeting various technical and regulatory requirements for the solutions that support these large load additions.   

To further stabilize electric reliability across the Upper Midwest, new electric grid infrastructure is needed to help move all forms of power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed. MISO’s Board of Directors in July 2022 approved Tranche 1 of the Long-Range Transmission Plan projects, which will address the transformative changes of the generation fleet in the coming years.  

As part of this portfolio, ATC is partnering with Xcel Energy on multiple projects. ATC is taking the lead on building LRTP Tranche 1 Project 6, which we call the Grid Forward – Central Wisconsin Project. This project includes a rebuild of approximately 160 miles of existing power line and adds a new, approximately 200-mile, 345,000-volt power line largely within existing power line corridors along with necessary substation enhancements. ATC and Xcel filed a joint application for this project with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin in July 2024.  

The second phase of the LRTP portfolios, called Tranche 2, is currently underway. We have participated in the identification of potential projects that will reinforce our system to address current and anticipated needs and benefit energy consumers regionally and within our service area. We anticipate MISO’s board of directors will approve Tranche 2 by the end of 2024.  

Investments in these regionally beneficial LRTP projects benefit the entire MISO region, therefore customers within our service territory will only pay a small fraction of the overall costs of these projects. 

Planning for an evolving system also means that traditional pole and wire configurations are not always the optimal alternative. Battery storage, such as our forthcoming Waupaca Area Storage Project in Waupaca, Wis., is the first Storage as Transmission Only Asset in the MISO footprint and will be placed into service in 2025. We are continuing to make use of advanced conductor technology that can carry more energy than a traditional high-voltage electric wire without requiring larger structures to support the high-voltage power lines, and we are continuing to evaluate additional uses of this technology.  

We also continue to make us of and study other technologies applicable to our system, such as static synchronous compensators. Our existing and proposed STATCOMs will be able to automatically control electric voltage and react within a fraction of a second to maintain voltage consistency on our system. Finally, industry trends, such as changes to the electric vehicle fleet along with distributed energy resources, are driving how we monitor changes within our service area to apply the appropriate solutions to the grid.   

When looking to the future, we take seriously our duty to manage the complex balance of short-term and long-term system needs through an iterative process that takes into account various dimensions such as cost, reliability, security, resiliency, and the time it takes to execute projects. One of our responsibilities is to evaluate the condition of existing assets and aging infrastructure. Exposure to weather and avian species adversely impacts and deteriorates wooden poles. Conducting surveillance of structures in the air and on foot throughout our service area to identify necessary renewal projects is a perpetual and methodical process.    

We also monitor and test substation equipment at regular intervals, assessing the risk of performance concerns and addressing those with the potential to cause outages or raise repair costs. Simultaneously, we see ongoing supply chain issues creating time constraints and cost pressures to maintain or replace assets. We take great strides in working to plan our asset renewals in ways that optimize our resources and minimize the lifecycle cost.  

To efficiently monitor the functionality of our system and to meet the data needs of the future, we continue to invest in communications infrastructure. Evaluating our operations and maintenance costs for communication needs, such as control center communications or security, is a process that we strive to continuously improve upon.  

Our evolving energy landscape is the basis for projects identified within this 10-year assessment. While the generation shift is occurring rapidly, what hasn’t changed is our commitment to maintaining a safe and reliable electric grid and our commitment to delivering value to our customers and stakeholders. 

Investments

Projections from past and current Transmission System Assessments

	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Projects to meet Planning Criteria	$0.4B	$0.6B	$0.5B	$0.9B	$1.8B
Regional Multi-Value Projects	$0.2B	$0.2B	$1.1B	$1.0B	$1.4B
Reliability - Maintaining Infrastructure	$1.8B	$2.2B	$2.8B	$3.4B	$4.0B
Economic Growth	$0.2B	$2.2B	$0.2B	$0.7B	$1.5B
Other Capital Categories	$0.3B/$0.9B	$0.3B/$1.0B	$0.5B/$1.7B	$0.6B/$2.1B	$0.2B/$2.2B
Total 10-Year Capital Cost **	$2.9B/$3.5B	$3.5B/$4.2B	$5.1B/$6.3B	$6.6B/$8.1B	$8.9B/$10.9B

** = +10% / -10%, defines a range in our estimating to account for variability in project cost