By Amanda Durish Cook

While MISO continues to acknowledge that General Electric is behind schedule on delivering a key piece of the RTO’s new market platform, it is tight-lipped in disclosing other project particulars — including who will ultimately take on the bulk of the work.

Initial deliveries from GE are “lagging,” MISO reported to the Board of Directors’ Technology Committee on Tuesday. But executives are offering few public details on other vendors they might be considering, though they still target a 2024 implementation.

The RTO recently told the board that delivery of a new day-ahead market clearing engine is running behind schedule, with GE now expected to deliver at the end of the year instead of in August as originally planned. (See “Vendor Delay on Market Platform Replacement,” MISO Board of Director Briefs: June 20, 2019.)

On Tuesday, Executive Director of Digital Transformation Kevin Caringer said MISO would only discuss GE’s performance in the Technology Committee’s closed session because the RTO is negotiating contracts with multiple vendors and is committed to securing “the best value” for stakeholders.

He did note the RTO continues to hold monthly executive meetings with GE.

“Our goal is always to adapt and move quickly, either with our own performance or vendor performance,” Caringer said.

MISO is exploring using different vendors for the platform’s model manager and private cloud development, Caringer said. In spring, the RTO said it would divide the platform replacement into a series of smaller agreements with vendors rather than one large contract with an outside party as originally planned. The move will undo its earlier plan to reveal a single chosen vendor at the beginning of 2020 after finishing an evaluation of alternatives to GE. (See MISO Seeking Multiple Vendors for Market Platform Redesign.)

The RTO is expected to launch the market clearing engine in 2022 and have the full new market platform operational in 2024. It now expects to spend about $139.7 million on the project, up from the $133.7 million estimate last year. However, it has also made provision for a 20% — or $26.7 million — contingency fund, which it could later decide to include in the project budget.

Meanwhile, MISO reported that a communication system went down on April 20, forcing it to use a backup system for about 28 minutes. Chief Information Security Officer Keri Glitch said the malfunction was associated with a power strip failure.