The Road to the CPCN
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The road to the CPCN.
How the Wisconsin PSC decides — and where the public record that shapes that decision gets built.
What is a CPCN?
Before a major transmission line can be built in Wisconsin, the company behind it has to obtain a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity — a CPCN. It is the formal permission a project needs to proceed.
The agency that grants or denies it is the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (the PSC). The Commission weighs whether the project is needed, what it would cost, what reasonable alternatives exist, and what its effects on people and the environment would be. The application is reviewed on a record — written filings, expert testimony, studies, and public comment — and the Commission decides based on what that record shows.
There are two proposed 765 kV lines, and each goes through this process on its own track: MariBell (Dairyland Power Cooperative and GridLiance Heartland), with a CPCN application expected at the Wisconsin PSC in fall 2026; and BECI (Midcontinent Grid Solutions — a Transource Energy and BHE Transmission joint venture), with a CPCN application expected in early 2027. Until each project’s application is filed, there is no PSC docket to comment in or intervene in for that project — the timeline below shows both tracks.
Source · campaign timeline; MISO Tranche 2.1 project descriptionsEntered MISO’s regional transmission plan as a 765 kV project on 150–200-foot steel towers — Dairyland Power Cooperative and GridLiance Heartland.
MISO Long-Range Transmission Plan (Tranche 2.1)
Source · MISO Long-Range Transmission Plan; MariBell and BECI project descriptionsEntered MISO’s regional transmission plan as a 765 kV project on 150–200-foot steel towers — Midcontinent Grid Solutions (Transource Energy and BHE Transmission).
Dairyland Power Cooperative and GridLiance Heartland have held four rounds of public open houses (Nov. 2025, Jan., Mar., and May 2026); a virtual open house remains available. No new in-person round is scheduled as of this writing. Source · MariBell Transmission Project, community outreach sessions
Public information & outreach
Landowners have been receiving letters from Transource Energy, one of MGS’s two developers, since at least April 2026 (“specific routes, structures, siting impacts, or localized effects cannot yet be answered”). A second mailing, dated August 3, 2026, confirms outreach is ongoing ahead of the August 24–27 open houses. Source · Transource Energy letter, April 24, 2026; MGS letter to the public, August 3, 2026
Dairyland Power Cooperative and GridLiance Heartland file at the Wisconsin PSC, opening MariBell’s formal docket. Source · campaign timeline
CPCN application filed
Midcontinent Grid Solutions files at the Wisconsin PSC, opening BECI’s formal docket. Before that filing, MGS is running its own pre-application process — 78 published study segments, open houses August 24–27, 2026, and public comment on the segments through September 7, 2026. That window has closed, though comments can still be sent to the company. None of it is a PSC filing. Source · MGS/BECI public study-segment materials
Members of the public can submit comment and qualifying parties can petition to intervene and become part of MariBell’s docket.
Intervention & public comment open
Members of the public can submit comment and qualifying parties can petition to intervene and become part of BECI’s docket.
The Commission takes sworn testimony and evidence in MariBell’s docket; cross-examination tests the claims on each side.
Evidentiary hearings
The Commission takes sworn testimony and evidence in BECI’s docket; cross-examination tests the claims on each side.
The PSC grants or denies MariBell’s CPCN — on the strength of the record built in its own docket.
PSC decision
The PSC grants or denies BECI’s CPCN — on the strength of the record built in its own docket.
The Commission decides on the record — the filings, testimony, and comment gathered before the vote. That means the record built before the decision is what shapes it. The CPCN proceeding is the campaign’s highest-leverage venue, and the work to influence it happens while the docket is open, not after.
The benefit case is where this proceeding will be won or lost.
Does the line return more than it costs?
MISO’s planning case claims the project returns $1.80 to $3.50 of benefit for every dollar spent. MISO’s own Independent Market Monitor — Dr. David Patton of Potomac Economics — estimates less than 40¢ of benefit per dollar. That gap is the central factual question the record must resolve, and it is where public comment and intervenor testimony carry weight.
Source · MISO LRTP benefit metrics; Potomac Economics (IMM)