MISO has at once rebranded and postponed its attempt to develop more sophisticated modeling software that can accommodate different combinations of combined cycle units and their dependencies.
The delay marks the third time MISO has pushed back an effort at combined cycle generation modeling. It also renamed the more involved process “multiple configuration resource” modeling.
MISO Director of Business and Digital Transformation Dhiman Chatterjee announced the further delay during an Oct. 8 Market Subcommittee call. MISO projects it will be able to model combined cycle interdependencies sometime late in 2025 at the earliest.
MISO first planned to put improved combined cycle modeling in place by 2020, then delayed until 2022, and again into mid-2023. The RTO said its current market platform couldn’t technically handle the software. (See “At Least 1 Market Project Delay,” New MISO Platform Headed to the Cloud.)
MISO now says General Electric is delaying delivery of a new market clearing engine beyond original expectations, making combined cycle modeling an even more distant prospect.
Chatterjee also said MISO experts, already working on other priorities, will be further taxed by implementation of FERC Order 2222, which requires RTOs to enable aggregators of distributed resources the opportunity to compete in organized markets.
MISO has previously said it could save anywhere from $14 to $34 million annually if it implemented enhanced combined cycle modeling.
“This is beyond frustrating,” Xcel Energy’s Kari Hassler said. “I’m flabbergasted MISO continues to push this project out even though there are substantial savings to be had … This is a product that the entire footprint needs.”
Stakeholders asked if MISO could do something in the meantime to incrementally model combined cycle generators. Chatterjee said MISO is trying to be as transparent as possible about the challenges of implementing the modeling on its existing market platform.
“I just find it odd that [General Electric] said this is so complex of an ask when they’ve done something similar in SPP, and SPP has had it for about three years now. The complexity level is not extremely high,” Hassler said.
Chatterjee said SPP in fact encountered some technical difficulties when it introduced similar modeling. He also said SPP’s market clearing engine and interfaces are different from MISO’s.
“The tools are all customized, individualized for each RTO, and that’s why it’s so complex,” Chatterjee said.
“We’ll try to be ready, and if an opportunity presents itself, we’ll jump on that,” he added.
MISO Braces for 2nd Hurricane
At the time of the Oct. 8 meeting, Executive Director of Market Operations and Resource Adequacy Shawn McFarlane said MISO was preparing for the then-Category 3 Hurricane Delta, the 25th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season.
“Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know we have another hurricane forming in the Gulf and headed to Louisiana,” McFarlane said.
While Hurricane Delta’s projected landfall is only about 10 miles east of where Hurricane Laura made landfall, McFarlane said the relatively good news was that the new storm is weaker and faster-moving. He also said a weekend landfall means less load to be possibly interrupted.
“So on a relative basis, that is a better situation,” McFarlane said.
MISO declared conservative operations and a transmission advisory for its South region beginning Friday.
McFarlane warned that Entergy’s Louisiana territory is still experiencing transmission line outages from the last storm. Hurricane Laura’s landfall on Aug. 27 brought MISO’s first load-shed orders and widespread transmission damage. (See MISO Keeps Advisories in Effect a Week After Laura.)
“Certainly, we’re not as resilient as we could be because of Hurricane Laura,” he said.
IMM Reassures Stakeholders on Coal Self-commitments
MISO’s Independent Market Monitor reiterated that most coal self-commitment decisions in the footprint are made prudently.
Last month, Monitor David Patton provided the Board of Directors with analysis showing that most of the footprint’s coal self-commitments are profitable. (See MISO IMM Rebuts Uneconomic Coal Commitment Studies.) This time, he brought the results to stakeholders.
“We don’t see the level of concern that prior studies have indicated,” Patton told stakeholders.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has released its own study concluding that Xcel Energy, DTE Energy, Cleco Power and Consumers Energy repeatedly make uneconomic coal generation commitments, costing ratepayers. (See UCS Analysis Knocks Coal Self-commitments.)
Patton said self-committed coal dispatch returned fewer revenues in 2019 only because all energy prices were lower across MISO.
MISO Communication System Still a Source of Frustration
MISO has conceded again that its communication system for emergency resources needs to be more user-friendly.
The acknowledgment came during a review of load-modifying resource performance for an early 2019 generation emergency.
Market participants use the nonpublic MISO Communication System (MCS) to update availability of their load-modifying resources for use in emergency conditions.
“I know the MCS is not the most beloved system, but it does provide important information to MISO,” MISO Corporate Counsel Jacob Krouse told stakeholders during an Oct. 7 Resource Adequacy Subcommittee conference call. MISO stakeholders have long criticized MCS as being clunky and difficult to navigate. (See Stakeholders: MISO System Fix Too Late for Summer.)
MISO issued a maximum generation event Jan. 30-31, 2019, in its North and Central regions during a record cold snap. While it called on more than 180 LMRs, only 21% met their expected load reduction. MISO levied almost $3 million in penalties to underperforming LMRs, and nine market participants sought alternative dispute resolution that lasted until early 2020.
Krouse said during the course of the dispute resolution, market participants indicated they were confused about what data they needed to input into the MCS. Some market participants weren’t following MISO’s requirement to furnish the MCS with their most up-to-date LMR availability data either, Krouse said.
He also noted that the MCS contained “default values inconsistent with LMR registration information,” which was fixed with monthly updates.
Krouse said there was confusion among MISO market participants on whether scheduling instructions would come from the MCS or another MISO mode of communication.
Krouse said MISO is working on MCS improvements following discussion from the Demand Response and MCS Alignment Task Team, formed last year. Further MCS improvements might be rolled out in mid-2021.
