CARMEL, Ind. — MISO says it will likely go above and beyond complying with FERC Order 841, as it expands its market rules for storage after its initial filing with the commission later this year.

MISO Market Design Manager Kevin Vannoy said the RTO will soon begin presenting stakeholders with straw proposals for Order 841 compliance, but it intends to keep going after submitting a final proposal. MISO will continue to study the operational characteristics of energy storage to make a more comprehensive, but still unidentified, set of market rules in 2019 and 2020.

“We’re not going to just stop at Order 841 compliance,” Vannoy promised stakeholders during an April 4 Energy Storage Task Force meeting.

FERC last month granted MISO permission to create a Stored Energy Resource Type II to facilitate market participation, although it said the new definition needs more work that can be deferred into the RTO’s Order 841 compliance filing due in early December. (See FERC OKs MISO Plan to Expand Storage.) Vannoy said revising the resource type definition will get MISO “part way, but not all the way there” to compliance.

He added that MISO’s list of improvement projects, the Market Roadmap, includes a more comprehensive storage participation plan, although it didn’t place in the top eight priorities this year despite stakeholders giving it top ranking. (See 8 Projects Set for 2018 MISO Market Roadmap.)

MISO Director of Policy Studies J.T. Smith reported the RTO is meanwhile beginning to study how storage resources could be considered for economic transmission projects.

“There are still a lot of questions out there but not a lot of firm answers,” Smith said.

— Amanda Durish Cook