CARMEL, Ind. — MISO navigated December with just one severe weather alert in its South region.
The RTO’s load averaged 74.3 GW throughout the month, down slightly from the 75.5-GW average a year earlier. However, the 95.5-GW peak on Dec. 19 bested December 2018’s 94.2-GW peak.
“Temperatures in December were slightly higher than last year and above the 30-year average,” Executive Director of Energy Operations Rob Benbow explained during an Informational Forum on Tuesday.
Benbow said prices were down significantly because of “surging” U.S. natural gas production. Day-ahead prices averaged $21.92/MWh and real-time $21.05/MWh — both down more than 30% year over year.
The RTO’s lone operational alert for the month occurred Dec. 16-17 in MISO South, when multiple tornadoes formed in Louisiana, Mississippi and southern Arkansas. The severe weather alert never escalated to conservative operations instructions.
CEO John Bear said the reasonably mild winter conditions are not indicative of what’s to come in the footprint, cautioning that MISO was in the “calm before the storm” in terms of resource evolution.
2019 “was a very successful year,” Bear said. “We have a whole lot of heavy lifting in front of us in the next 24 to 36 months. … We’ve got a lot of big, meaty things on our plate this year.” Bear cited MISO’s ongoing market platform replacement as well as the resource availability and need project, which may entail changes to the Planning Resource Auction and capacity accreditation.
“It’s going to give us a tremendous amount of flexibility and transparency … as resources change,” Bear said of the new cloud-based market platform.
— Amanda Durish Cook
