There’s a first time for everything, and the first time for Hoosier Energy to deploy the Load Modifying Resource (LMR) Program came on January 24, 2026.

 

The LMR program started in June of 2023, motivated in part by the severe cold of Winter Storm Elliott in December of 2022. Running in tandem with the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) planning year, Hoosier Energy and its member cooperatives gradually worked with commercial and industrial members to join the program, which paid an incentive for being available to shed load in the event of a capacity emergency.

 

“That load shed looks just like a capacity resource such as a natural gas peaking plant or a coal plant or a wind turbine – it gets similar credit from MISO,” said Blake Kleaving, Hoosier Energy’s Member Solutions Manager. “Although they’re shedding load and not generating, it gets accounted for in almost the same way.”

 

However, for over two and a half years, no emergencies were called requiring participants to shed load.

 

“We’ve really just been registering participants, paying out the incentives for signing up and we haven’t really had to do anything,” Kleaving said.

 

That changed in the pre-dawn hours of a late January Saturday.

 

Shortly after 5 a.m., Hoosier Energy was notified that LMRs would be dispatched. Member cooperatives and LMR participants received official notification about a half-hour later that a dispatch would start at 7 a.m. The LMRs had two hours notice to shed load for four hours.

 

Several participants were already offline or below the threshold, leaving 11 LMR participants across seven member co-op territories to shed load.

 

The early hours of a weekend notwithstanding, the process went about as well as possible.

 

“It was a bit unusual getting the call so early in the morning on a weekend to get things started, but once we connected with everyone, things came together quickly and moved smoothly,” said Andy Sommer, Manager of Member Services at Southern Indiana Power.

 

Even though it was a first-time event, many of the participants had been through a test run in the fall of 2025. That allowed them to know exactly what they needed to turn off to get to the predetermined level of load shed. It showed when the real thing happened.

 

“We applaud the quick reaction time of our LMR participant, especially with such short notice,” Sommer said. “Their willingness to respond and help when called upon makes a big difference.

 

“Overall, it was a great team effort, and the communication between our cooperative, Hoosier Energy and the participating member really helped everything go well.”

 

Participating LMRs were ultimately able to shed approximately 20-25 MWs of load during the event. Due to the plant shutdowns and already reduced load at some locations, reaching the full potential of 43.2 MWs of registered capacity was not obtainable.

 

“That 20-25 MWs isn’t anything to laugh about,” Kleaving said. “That’s still a pretty significant amount when you start looking at the grid, and just a portion of many more participants in other areas out there shedding load as well.”