While it warns of more system risk in the coming years, MISO is preparing for an unremarkable spring and a routine capacity auction.
MISO expects a 120-GW systemwide coincident peak and a 134-GW planning reserve margin requirement in next month’s 2021-22 Planning Resource Auction. Those figures are considered preliminary.
The grid operator estimates it has 178 GW of installed capacity and almost 147 GW of unforced capacity, easily meeting the reserve margin requirement.
MISO forecasted a 121.6-GW systemwide coincident peak and a nearly 136-GW planning reserve margin requirement for the 2020-21 planning year. (See Little Change in MISO 2020/21 PRA Assumptions.) It ultimately declared three emergencies and called for two load sheds during that time frame because of a major hurricane and a deep freeze.
The 2021-22 zonal coincident peak forecast is predicted to be nearly 123 GW, lower than the previous year’s estimate of 125 GW.
As it prepares for the coming planning year, MISO said a relatively uneventful spring should round out the current one.
Eric Rodriguez, a resource adequacy coordination engineer, said MISO is anticipating a 101-GW spring peak, “considerably less than” May 2018’s all-time peak of 111 GW.
Staff project they will have 136 GW of available capacity to manage the peak.
“Under typical weather and outage conditions, adequate resources are projected to be available to meet expected load this spring,” the grid operator said.
However, Rodriguez said MISO may have to tap into operating reserves if increasing forced outage rates meet above-normal spring temperatures, particularly in late May.
MISO South contains the highest probability for warmer-than-normal temperatures this spring, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
