MISO’s Steering Committee put its own operations under inspection during a Nov. 19 meeting, when it addressed stakeholder concerns that meeting materials are being posted too late.
Michelle Bloodworth, MISO’s executive director of external and stakeholder affairs, said meeting and agenda materials should be posted at least a week before the meeting under governance guidelines.
“We have not forgotten this and we’re taking a lot of strides internally,” Bloodworth said, adding that MISO is looking at different options on how to notify stakeholders when materials are posted.
MISO management will address the committee’s concerns on posting and discuss verbal updates versus updates accompanied by posted materials at an informational forum Dec. 15.
The Steering Committee went over a tentative schedule of monthly 2016 meetings. In light of the impending stakeholder redesign, the committee is embracing a “business as usual” policy through March until a more defined plan emerges from the stakeholder redesign committee. (See MISO Board Reduces Meeting Schedule; AC Likely to Follow.)
Also during the meeting, the closed Operations Working Group and the closed Operations Planning Working Group were merged by vote into the temporarily named Confidential Reliability Working Group. The Steering Committee also gave the go-ahead on a draft charter and management plan for the newly merged entity. The group’s purpose is to “provide a forum to promote the reliability of the Bulk Electric System and to develop, review and recommend operational planning practices,” according to the draft management plan.
Kent Feliks, chair of the Market Subcommittee, asked the Steering Committee for ideas on how the subcommittee should address projects that are withdrawn from MISO’s market roadmaps. Currently, there’s no procedure in place for projects that drop out of the 2017-2019 Market Roadmap. Feliks said a possible procedure and improvements to MISO Market Roadmap process will be discussed at the Dec. 1 Market Subcommittee meeting.
MISO Tops Wind Record, Reports Low October Energy Prices
Todd Ramey, vice president of system operations and market services, told an informational forum last week that the RTO set a new wind generation record Oct. 28, with instantaneous output of 12.4 GW, breaking the previous record of 11.9 GW, set Jan. 8. Wind produced 4.1 TWh for the month, up from 2.9 TWh in September and 3.6 TWh in October 2014.
Meanwhile, at a MISO informational forum held Nov. 18, the RTO reported relatively low wholesale energy prices for the month of October, owing to inexpensive fuel prices, strong wind farm output and slightly higher temperatures above historic October averages.
According to a MISO presentation, load peaked at 84.6 GW on Oct. 8, significantly less than September’s peak of 113.9 GW. Average load for the month was 68.6 GW, down 2.4% from October 2014.
LMPs averaged $25.34/MWh in October, down from $26.80/MWh in September and $32.44/MWh in October 2014.
MISO Launches ‘Jargon-Free’ Blog
MISO last week introduced a blog, MISO Matters, an effort to increase understanding of RTO operations by simplifying technical topics. The first entry features breakdowns of peak load, automatic reserve sharing and the MISO Transmission Expansion Plan.
“We will feature what MISO is doing around big topics, like [the Clean Power Plan] and transmission planning, but also try and explain some of the day-to-day business operations,” MISO spokesman Andy Schonert said. “Most of all, the goal of the blog is to tell MISO’s story free of jargon and acronyms, and explain what MISO does on a daily basis.”
— Amanda Durish Cook
