MISO is ready to begin testing some of the capabilities of its new market platform as the effort to develop the system enters its fourth year, stakeholders learned last week.

“It’s really an exciting time for the program because we’re pivoting from foundational work to delivery,” MISO Senior IT Director Curtis Reister told stakeholders on a Market Subcommittee conference call Thursday.

Reister said members’ IT departments will soon begin testing MISO’s new market user interface software in a customer test environment.

MISO expects it will begin transitioning to the new interface by the third quarter of 2021, running the system in parallel to the old platform for several months to allow members to phase in the change before the old interface is officially retired in early 2022, Reister said.

The RTO reports that 291 companies currently use its market user interface.

“It’s not like every member has to transition on the same day. This allows members to attempt to transition … and go back and forth as many times as needed,” Reister said.

Because of vendor delays, MISO now says it’s unsure if it can meet a self-imposed June deadline to demonstrate the operation of its private cloud using non-Critical Infrastructure Protection data. The new private cloud will house the modular platform, replacing the current server-based platform.

The RTO plans to migrate data to its new private cloud for testing and import modeling information to its one-shop model manager this year. (See “Private Cloud Prepped for New Market Platform,” MISO Board of Directors Briefs: Dec. 12, 2019.)

By the end of the year, MISO will have uploaded its operations data in the model manager, which is scheduled to go live next year, Reister said.

“Modeling is interwoven in a lot of MISO processes,” Reister said of the importance of a singular repository for the RTO’s many planning models. MISO currently relies on several different means to collect and validate grid information for modeling.

MISO said the contract and delivery date of work on its new day-ahead market clearing engine is currently under negotiations. Its goal is to have the existing platform and a version of the new platform running in parallel for testing purposes in 2021, paving the way for the eventual retirement of the old platform. The RTO hopes to have the new clearing engine in production in the third quarter of 2022.

MISO executives have said that the monolithic nature of the current market platform is a major limiting factor in adapting its market to accommodate new products that seek to incentivize availability of the RTO’s shifting resource mix.

“2020 is the fourth year of the program, and it represents a turn in focus of the work,” Vice President of Market System Enhancements Todd Ramey said during MISO Board Week in March. “Whereas the first three years of the program were primarily focused on extending the life of the legacy platform … this year we’re really making the switch to completing major projects and bringing some of this online.”