By Amanda Durish Cook
CARMEL, Ind. — MISO will ask FERC for an April 1 effective date on its new ramp capability software, RTO officials said Friday.
Dhiman Chatterjee, MISO’s senior manager of market analysis, said he expected the commission to approve the request, which will be filed Feb. 1. The commission approved the product in October 2014 (ER14-2156).
“They have understood the need for a product to explicitly address ramp concerns,” he said at a technical workshop Friday, which focused on how stakeholders should incorporate new ramp capability software into their systems and how the product fits into MISO’s market.
“We’ll do our best to do what we can [to answer questions] today, and if we can’t address it today, we’ll make a note. We do have some time before the go-live date,” Chatterjee said.
A ramp capability customer care line is scheduled to open Feb. 9. MISO plans to make the production interface on ramp capability offers available on March 25.
In Development Since 2011
The software, which has been in development since 2011, is designed to respond to short-term variations in load by holding back a portion of rampable capacity from the five-minute dispatch.
With “increasing renewable penetration and interchange flexibility, net load variations and uncertainties impose challenges to maintain real-time power balance,” MISO said.
MISO will set ramp requirements for the day-ahead and real-time markets based on load forecasts and historical analysis. The new products won’t eliminate all short-term scarcity events, such as sudden generator losses and large changes in interchange.
“Now we’ll have the capability to prepare for both the anticipated and unanticipated ramp needs,” MISO Market Design Engineer Congcong Wang said.
Jason Howard, manager of market quality, said while participation isn’t mandatory, it would be difficult for operators to completely ignore the ramp software’s benefits, as revenues earned from software use would contribute toward reducing any owed make-whole payment.
“We’re essentially saying in our FERC filings that this is like our [revenue sufficiency guarantee] make-whole payments,” he said. Up or down ramp capability will be included as additional revenue components under the revenue sufficiency guarantee.
Resources able to respond to five-minute energy dispatch instructions — generation, type II demand response and external asynchronous resources — will be able to offer ramp capability. Energy storage is not eligible and dispatchable intermittent resources will be able to provide down ramp based on their ability to reduce output in accordance with load following needs.
Opportunity Costs
Resources that are dispatched out of merit order through the clearing of up or down ramp capability will be compensated for lost opportunity costs at a maximum of $5/MWh.
MISO says the product could save $3.8 million to $5.4 million in dispatch and commitment costs.
Howard said use of the ramp product will result in two new line items on settlement statements, a day-ahead procurement charge and a real-time procurement charge. Payments for those providing ramp will be included under make-whole payments.
Chatterjee said MISO will likely conduct a study on the ramp product to gauge effectiveness over its first few years of operation.
Jason Fogarty said Potomac Economics, MISO’s Independent Market Monitor, is supportive of the product. He said he isn’t worried about a small number of resources not offering ramp, but he would become concerned if a large portion of resources decline to participate.
“If ramp capability withholding becomes prevalent, we would make a suggestion to MISO to update their software programs,” Fogarty said.
Going forward, Fogarty said, the Monitor will report quarterly on quantities of withheld up or down ramp capability, the impact of the $5 demand curve on procurement and any potential “market power or efficiency concerns.”
MISO Senior Customer Trainer Ron Matlock said additional training sessions for stakeholders will be held on Feb. 17, Feb. 24 and March 2.
