In response to recent initiatives by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to expand regional coordination of electric transmission systems, several Southeastern transmission owners have proposed a plan to expand the existing processes for regional transmission planning.

The plan outlines an inter-regional process among the following transmission owners: Alabama Electric Cooperative, Dalton Utilities, Duke Energy Carolinas, Entergy Operating Companies, Georgia Transmission Corporation, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, Progress Energy Carolinas, Santee Cooper, South Carolina Electric and Gas, South Mississippi Electric Power Association, Southern Company, and Tennessee Valley Authority. The process will be incorporated into each participating transmission owner's planning process.

FERC Order 890, released earlier this year, requires that jurisdictional transmission providers amend their Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT) to adopt certain regional planning principles. Transmission providers in the Southeast presented an initial draft of their proposed planning process at a FERC technical conference in June of this year.

The inter-regional participation proposal was developed in response to feedback received at the technical conference and will provide a means for evaluating stakeholder requested studies across multiple interconnected systems. In addition, the proposed plan will build on the current inter- regional reliability planning processes, allowing for additional participation by stakeholders.

Also under the proposed plan, the regional planning processes developed by the participating transmission providers for compliance with Order 890 will be used to collect data, coordinate planning assumptions and address stakeholder study requests involving their respective region. The data and assumptions developed at the regional level will then be consolidated and used in the development of models for use in the proposed inter-regional participation process.

In addition to performing stakeholder requested studies, the inter- regional planning process will also provide a means for the participating transmission providers and stakeholders to review the data, assumptions and assessments being performed on an inter-regional basis.

The participating transmission providers will be working with interested stakeholders to develop the necessary details associated with this proposal.