Entergy Corp. has concluded that joining the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) could save its customers up to $1 billion between 2013 and 2022.

The study done by Entergy included independent analysis of the savings and actual proposals from Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and MISO on how certain costs would be shared. The study concluded that joining MISO could save customers more than $1 billion in power production costs for the 2013 to 2022 timeframe.

MISO is an independent, nonprofit, Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) that supports the reliable delivery of electricity in 13 U.S. states. RTO’s are independent entities that manage and operate the transmission system within a specific geographic area. With Entergy added as a member, the area of the organization would extend from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico.

Entergy recently has worked with the Entergy Regional State Committee (E-RSC), a committee formed by the retail regulators of the Entergy Operating Companies, to evaluate joining an RTO, either the SPP or MISO, orenhancing the current Independent Coordinator of Transmission (ICT); an arrangement where SPP serves as the ICT.

The Entergy operating companies will provide detailed analysis supporting these conclusions to their retail regulators in May andanticipate submitting formal proposals to those regulators later in 2011, with a target implementation date for joining MISO by December 2013.

One of the advantages of joining MISO is becoming a part of its centralized market-driven dispatch process called the “Day 2” market. This process creates a large wholesale market for the buying and selling of electricity, creating a substantial portion of savings for the customers. While both MISO and SPP were assumed to have a Day 2 market, only MISO currently has an operating market to date.

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