MISO’s Independent Market Monitor found no major concerns with performance in MISO South over the summer and early fall, but it still wants the RTO to get a handle on short-notice and unreported generation outages in the region.

Potomac Economics’ Robert Sinclair delivered a MISO South operations report at the Entergy Regional State Committee’s annual meeting Wednesday. The report showed South prices for late summer and fall were significantly lower than in 2017 and 2018, holding to about $25/MWh, while natural gas prices hovered around $2.50/MMBtu.

“During the year, you see prices have been declining, and that’s the result of declining natural gas prices,” Sinclair said. Monitor staff also reported higher prices in the MISO portions of Texas in recent months because of transmission outages.

But Sinclair said the Monitor is keeping tabs on short-notice outages and extensions of planned generation outages, along with unreported outages and derates, which continue to be prevalent in South.

“A significant portion of resources continue to be unreported and short-notice,” Sinclair said.

MISO Director of Operations and External Affairs Liaison Tag Short said the RTO called a maximum generation warning in South in early June because of both high load and forced generation outages.

Short said South’s 32.2-GW summer peak occurring Aug. 12 came in lower than the 32.7-GW all-time peak on Aug. 10, 2015.

Sinclair also told Entergy executives that the regional dispatch transfer limit continues to provide South members with cost savings and the benefit of integration. He said the transfer limit bound much more frequently in the South-to-Midwest region August through October. MISO’s agreement to use SPP transmission to facilitate transfers stipulates a 2,500-MW South-to-Midwest limit and a 3,000-MW Midwest-to-South limit.

— Amanda Durish Cook