By Amanda Durish Cook
MISO will host an in-depth workshop this fall on how to incorporate generation projects that draw on more than one fuel source.
The workshop, tentatively planned for Oct. 8, will focus mostly on intermittent generation projects paired with electric storage. The workshop idea materialized during a Steering Committee call Thursday, when members of the former Energy Storage Task Force presented a list of hybrid resource topics to be assigned to stakeholder groups for developing possible Tariff changes and Business Practices Manuals.
The list of 22 topics regarding hybrid generators is the pièce de résistance of the ESTF, which sunset in June after identifying energy storage topics that MISO and stakeholders should focus on in order to integrate storage into the RTO’s markets. The list of hybrid considerations was the final document the group produced. (See “Next up: Hybrid Resources,” MISO Undecided on Amending Storage Plan.)
Currently, MISO models hybrid resources separately for each fuel source. The ESTF said addressing its list would help “facilitate non-discriminatory market participation.”
Committee members were initially daunted by the length of the list until Chair Tia Elliott suggested the all-stakeholder workshop. The committee is responsible for routing new grid topics to the appropriate MISO stakeholder committee.
Among other ideas, the ESTF wants MISO to begin considering: capacity accreditation; ensuring hybrid output doesn’t exceed interconnection service levels; addressing state of charge; whether to allow separate or dual metering; how the RTO’s must-offer rule would apply; participation in ancillary services; and asset registration.
The Planning Subcommittee is already considering how a hybrid resource will be studied in the generator interconnection process, one of the ESTF’s priorities. (See MISO Queues up Interconnection Options.)
“Hybrid storage resources are under active development and could be online in MISO in the near term. Prompt resolution to the … issues is necessary not only to ensure accurate assessment of the business case for market participants, but also to ensure these resources are appropriately participating in the market under the required rules and structures,” the ESTF said.
The ESTF has requested the hybrid topics receive immediate attention from the Market Subcommittee, Resource Adequacy Subcommittee, Planning Advisory Committee and Reliability Subcommittee. Former ESTF Chair John Fernandes said many of the issues couldn’t wait until MISO’s 2020 Integrated Roadmap list of market improvements, explaining that hybrid projects are already in the works in the RTO’s footprint. He pointed to Entergy’s proposed 100-MW hybrid solar-and-storage project, currently before the Arkansas Public Service Commission. The project is expected to enter service by 2021.
“We do want to create a little bit of urgency around this,” Fernandes told Steering Committee members.
Clean Grid Alliance’s Rhonda Peters seconded Fernandes’ call for urgency and urged the committee to track the topics on the list to make sure stakeholder groups are actively tackling them.
“This issue list is comprehensive, and it shows how much work the task team put into it,” MISO Market Design Adviser Bill Peters said.
