Midwest Reliability Organization warns MISO margins are tightening as data-center demand rises
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Summary
MRO representatives told the Senate Energy Committee that accelerating demand — largely from data centers — and lagging dispatchable resource additions are tightening regional reliability margins and raising the risk of seasonal shortfalls, while long lead times for critical equipment could slow necessary transmission and generation expansions.
The Midwest Reliability Organization told the Minnesota Senate Energy Committee on Feb. 23 that North American bulk-power margins are tightening and that accelerating demand, largely driven by data centers, is the top reliability risk for the region.
Will Soeffert, director of regulatory affairs at MRO, and Mark T. Meyer, director of power system risk management, said the organization’s just-published 2026 regional risk assessment identifies uncertain energy availability as the top "extreme" risk for the third consecutive year. Meyer said rapid load growth, retiring dispatchable generation and increased reliance on inverter-based wind and solar require updated planning metrics and longer horizons.
Meyer highlighted the timing mismatch between new loads and the time it takes to build generation and transmission: data centers can be built in about two to three years, new gas generation typically takes five to six years, and major transmission projects can take 10 years or more. He said 2025 showed a 27-gigawatt shortfall in dispatchable resources compared with projections and that even if all prospective resources are completed, winter conditions still pose a failure risk in modeled scenarios for parts of the MISO footprint starting in 2028.
The presenters reviewed recent events to illustrate risk: Winter Storm Yuri (2021) caused widespread outages in Texas, and a recent Arctic blast (Winter Storm Fern) prompted emergency actions in MISO, including load management. Meyer said new reliability standards requiring winterization and preparedness have improved performance but do not eliminate risk.
The MRO also named material and equipment unavailability as a newly elevated risk: long lead times for transformers and other critical high-voltage equipment could constrain planned transmission expansions and delay the ability to serve new large loads. "If we can't get the steel in the ground, we aren't going to be able to generate or transmit electricity to serve new loads," Meyer said.
MRO framed reliability as a "team sport" that requires coordination among regulators, utilities, grid operators and policymakers. Committee members asked whether the assessment counts prospective data centers or only committed projects; MRO replied the model uses RTO-submitted data, which reflects what RTOs and utilities provide for planning and therefore includes stages of project commitment and uncertainty.
The hearing record shows MRO asked for proactive decisions to align retirements, replacement capacity and infrastructure build timelines to avoid widening shortfalls. The committee did not take action; the MRO presentation concluded the panel’s agenda for that day.