MAPP wants to apply a distance-based transmission charge for wholesale coordination transactions of four years or less between pool members. It claims that actual use of pool transmission facilities often does not "even out" over time, so that some MAPP members transmit larger amounts of short-term pool power than others. The new method is designed to ensure proper cost allocation and optimal use of the system. Each pool member computes the average cost of its transmission lines, and that data is used to compute a pool-wide average transmission line cost per megawatt-mile (that is, average pool-wide transmission costs divided by the sum of the megawatt-mile capacity of all lines).
The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) agreed that the new method should improve efficient use of generation in the upper Midwest region, but opposed using megawatt-mile pricing as a precedent for future transmission pricing. The PSC argued that any formula based on the sum of the carrying capacity of each line is unrealistic because the entire transmission system supports all of its transactions.
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