MISO hopes to have a more nuanced pricing plan before the next hurricane contorts transmission towers.
Stakeholders have told the RTO that it was unacceptable for it to make after-the-fact price corrections to the $3,500/MWh value of lost load (VoLL) when Hurricane Laura tore through the grid in late August. (See MISO Questions VOLL Pricing During Abnormal Events.) They said the RTO’s use of VoLL is clunky because it doesn’t consider when load and generation are powerless to respond to real-time price signals during hurricanes and other force majeure events.
“Those prices were not shown in the marketplace for participants to respond to,” MISO Director of Market Design Kevin Vannoy told stakeholders during a Market Subcommittee teleconference on Feb. 4.
Vannoy said MISO will pursue alternative plans for pricing during force majeure events. He added that the grid operator would discuss a direction with stakeholders through April, finalize a plan in May and file with FERC by June 1, when the next hurricane season begins.
“This is urgent given the looming hurricane season,” Vannoy said.
MISO used VoLL pricing last August in Louisiana’s Lake Charles area, where Hurricane Laura destroyed enough distribution and transmission lines to effectively create a dead zone. Five months after the storm, the RTO’s Independent Market Monitor continues to call for a retroactive pricing change for the dead buses priced at VoLL in Laura’s wake. (See “Laura Pricing in Question,” MISO Monitor Reviews Blustery Fall.)
“Force majeure events render generation and load physically unable to respond through no fault of their own,” staff said in summing up stakeholder sentiment.
Vannoy said to better price anomalies, they should be published in real-time, recognize the reliability value of the energy provided during a transmission emergency, recognize assets that are physically unable to respond, respect operational constraints and “assign the resulting costs exclusively to cost causers/beneficiaries.”
Monitor David Patton asked for a “permanent solution,” not simply a correction for Hurricane Laura.
The RTO is still in nonpublic discussions about settlement disputes stemming from Hurricane Laura. Market participants impacted by the storm had until December to initiate a settlement dispute process.
