By Amanda Durish Cook

NEW ORLEANS — MISO’s dedicated market platform replacement team will work this year to ensure the RTO’s existing system can stay afloat during the time it will take to build the new one, staff told stakeholders last week.

While MISO is slated to begin naming specific requirements and assembling the new platform next year, this year’s efforts will focus on “standing up” the existing platform for day-to-day operations with software patches, Executive Director of Market Development Jeff Bladen told the Technology Committee of the Board of Directors on March 27.

The RTO has so far filled 18 of the 30 positions it has planned for this year, including market engineers and a software architect, Bladen said.

In 2017, MISO completed an assessment on the capability of its existing market platform and began early design of the new, more adaptable modular system. The RTO is poised to spend $130 million by 2024 to replace the aging system. It expects to begin migrating to the new system in 2020, keeping the current one in operation at least until 2021. (See MISO Makes Case for $130M Market Platform Upgrade.)

“This will be one of the largest undertakings in our history,” Bladen said.

“We’re making sure we build the right kind of system, not just an enhanced version of the current system,” MISO Director of Forward Operations Planning Kevin Sherd told stakeholders at a March Market Subcommittee meeting.

‘No BS’

With such a complex project, MISO’s directors urged that executives deliver clearer reports that do not minimize any future hitches or budget overflows.

“What I want to hear from you is clear, candid communication. No BS. No flowery language. … That’s the kind of stuff that I need to hear,” Director Thomas Rainwater told MISO executives.

“That’s what we need: full transparency and candor. We’re not going to rip your heads off,” Director Baljit Dail added.

Earlier in March, Bladen said the RTO’s new platform will be equipped to handle expanded energy storage participation under FERC’s Order 841, but the legacy system may struggle to accommodate the directives.

Meanwhile, MISO’s separate, settlements platform replacement is ready for the launch of five-minute settlements, officials said, although the RTO is continuing to test the new system while it waits for generation owners to adapt their own software and reporting systems to a five-minute schedule. MISO has twice obtained FERC approval to defer the five-minute settlements roll-out until July. (See MISO Wins Delay on 5-Minute Settlement Roll-Out.)