ORLANDO — MISO officials last week signaled their opposition to PJM’s new limits on generation imports but said they will be capacity buyers in the near term as they face a shortfall that could result in load shedding as early as 2016.
MISO CEO John Bear said officials hope generation plants being built on Marcellus Shale deposits in Pennsylvania will provide relief as the region copes with a potential 5 to 7 GW capacity shortfall in 2016-17 due to the loss of coal-fired generation.
“We’d like capacity to come in this direction,” Bear told a press briefing on the sidelines of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners here. “In 16-17 we’ll be capacity challenged.”
MISO is completing analysis of a survey to determine the extent of its shortfall, with results due to be released as soon as next month. MISO officials fear their current 15% reserve margin could be reduced by more than half, even with the anticipated import of 1,000 MW of capacity from the south.
MISO currently meets a 1 event in 10-year loss of load expectation. “You’re going to have more events” in the future, Bear said. “We could go to three events a year.”
Asked about predictions of rolling blackouts, Bear responded, “that’s a little strong.” More likely, officials said, are localized load shed events, similar to what PJM experienced in September.
“You could expect more pinched operating days [forcing operators] into emergency operating procedures,” said General Counsel Steve Kozey.
No `Arbitrary Caps’
Officials said they can’t be certain they’ll be able to tap the new generation in PJM. “They’ve got a lot of retirements, so their flows will change,” Bear said. In an apparent swipe at PJM’s new import limits, he added: “We want flows to be dictated by the physics of the system, not any arbitrary caps.”
PJM stakeholders gave final approval Thursday to new methodology that will limit imports from MISO to 3,000 MW in next year’s base capacity auction. The limits do not apply to pseudo-tied generators that are under PJM control and meet other conditions. (See Members Deadlock on DR in Capacity Auctions)
Richard Doying, MISO executive vice president of operations, said PJM’s methodology for determining cross-border transfer capability is unduly conservative. The methodology dispute was the subject of a hearing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in June. (See FERC Likely to Increase Pressure on PJM-MISO Joint Market Talks.)
The two RTOs are attempting to find agreement on a common methodology as part of their Joint and Common Market initiative. If no agreement is reached, said Bear, “FERC will call balls and strikes. They’ve already done that.”
Interchange Optimization
To optimize real-time interchange energy flows the two regions also are seeking ways to prevent traders from guessing wrong on prices and making uneconomic transactions. PJM stakeholders last month approved creation of a new product, Coordinated Transaction Scheduling, to reduce uneconomic flows with NYISO.
Optimizing flows between MISO and PJM will be more complicated, officials said, because of the higher transaction volume between the two regions.
Entergy Integration
In the short term, MISO officials are focused on completing the integration of “MISO South” — Entergy, Cleco, Lafayette Utilities System, Louisiana Energy and Power Authority, Louisiana Generating and South Mississippi Electric Power Association. Market trials are being conducted now with the cutover scheduled for Dec. 19. The expansion will increase MISO’s peak load from 100,000 MW to 140,000 MW.
MISO lost in the competition for the Western Area Power Administration, Basin Electric and Heartland Consumers Power District, which decided to join the Southwest Power Pool (SPP). “The transmission cost allocation deal with SPP is advantageous to them,” Bear said. “We can’t overcome that.”
