By Amanda Durish Cook

MISO said Monday that it will hold its quarterly Board Week via conference call only, canceling the New Orleans event as the COVID-19 coronavirus extends its reach.

The cancellation was announced in a joint letter from CEO John Bear and Board of Directors Chair Phyllis Currie. The two said the six committee meetings and full board meeting scheduled for March 24-26 will continue as planned, but in WebEx/dial-in format.

“At this point, the board and MISO senior management have concluded that it is prudent for us to take more aggressive steps to keep our employees and stakeholders safe and do our part to limit the spread of this virus,” Bear and Currie wrote. “We did not take this decision lightly. MISO’s Board of Directors views these meetings as extremely important aspects of the stakeholder process that provide valuable opportunities for engagement with our stakeholders. As we have monitored the situation overall, paying special attention to member and state travel policies, we have concluded that this is the right decision for the region.”

MISO also announced that all other stakeholder meetings will continue to take place via conference call through May 1. The RTO’s conference call-only policy originally applied to meetings held March 9-13. (See MISO Steps Up COVID-19 Response.)

MISO has hosted its spring quarterly Board Week in New Orleans uninterrupted since 2011, two years before Entergy joined the RTO and made the city part of the footprint.

The cancellation occurred less than one week before stakeholders and MISO staff were set to converge on the Westin Hotel in downtown New Orleans. The RTO apologized for the short notice, explaining that it tried to collect “as much input and direction as possible” before its decision.

Advisory Committee Chair Audrey Penner said she fully supported MISO’s decision “to protect its staff and stakeholders while the uncertainty over the COVID-19 situation continues to play out.” She pointed out that the committee has held meetings via conference call in the past.

“While they are a little trickier to manage, I don’t anticipate any issues next week that would prevent us from having a good discussion. Having said that, holding ‘policy-type’ discussions via conference call [isn’t] ideal, so we are limiting those types of discussions next week,” Penner said in an email to RTO Insider.

Penner said she will prepare a verbal report to the board as usual, this time covering the AC’s recent recommendation that the RTO create a new “affiliate” sector for hard-to-define members. (See MISO Advisory Committee OKs 11th Sector.)

Steering Committee Chair Tia Elliott canceled the March 25 meeting of her committee and said it will next meet in an April conference call.

Elliott, who also serves as vice chair of the Advisory Committee, said she had full confidence in MISO and Penner to navigate the AC meeting by conference call.

“No doubt it can be tricky at times, but there is a chance we have a glitch during an in-person meeting too,” Elliott said. “I would encourage stakeholders to be patient, kind, and show grace during these conference calls, and to each other, especially during this unprecedented time we are all living through together.”

The AC has more than 50 members and alternates; audiences regularly exceed 100 people at Board Week.

MISO promised more updates on COVID-19’s effect on its stakeholder process and echoed Elliott’s message of unity.

“In times such as these, it is essential that we all work together to deliver electricity reliability to serve our customers,” Bear and Currie said.