By Amanda Durish Cook and Rich Heidorn Jr.

MISO asked FERC to reject Indianapolis Power and Light’s complaint over energy storage rules, calling it disruptive to stakeholder proceedings and the commission’s broad rulemaking.

MISO asked the commission to dismiss IPL’s Oct. 21 complaint and let it continue using its stakeholder proceedings and Market Roadmap process as the venues for storage market design. MISO also said it would honor “deliberate commission policy” (EL17-8).

MISO’s response was one of a flurry of comments filed Nov. 10, before the commission issued its Nov. 15 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking outlining requirements that RTOs and ISOs remove barriers to storage and aggregated distributed energy resources. (See related story, FERC Rule Would Boost Energy Storage, DER.)

The RTO said IPL’s request could “distract and detract” from its efforts to work out storage issues with stakeholders and from FERC’s effort to address the issue industry-wide, “rather than within the narrow confines of a single market participant’s complaint in this limited proceeding.”

IPL told FERC that it had no way to receive compensation for the 20-MW battery at its Harding Street Station although the facility has been providing MISO with primary frequency response since May. (See IPL Asks FERC to Force Update to MISO Storage Rules.)

MISO responded that IPL’s request “improperly circumvents” FERC’s rulemaking on storage compensation and grid integration, a process that continued with a technical conference Nov. 9. (See FERC Panelists Debate Storage Uses, Compensation.)

The RTO also argues that IPL “neither shows any immediate damage to itself from waiting for the outcome of such commission processes” and claims that there is no pressing need for primary frequency response service in the MISO footprint.

MISO also accused IPL of exaggerating and mischaracterizing alleged Tariff shortcomings and said IPL provided no proof of how MISO’s current storage energy resource dispatch protocols would harm the life of the Harding Street battery.

“A number of issues raised in the IPL complaint are already being addressed as part of MISO’s Market Roadmap process and through separate ongoing public stakeholder discussions,” MISO spokesman Jay Hermacinski said. “Stakeholder discussions and the Market Roadmap process are intended to comprehensively evaluate possible changes to MISO’s Tariff necessary to further accommodate various energy storage technologies.”

Others Weigh In

IPL’s complaint won support from the Energy Storage Association, Advanced Energy Economy and a coalition of environmental organizations, including the Sustainable FERC Project and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The groups said FERC should order MISO to create a separate market product for primary frequency response and to revise its dispatch protocol to one “appropriate for all energy storage technologies.”

Duke Energy Indiana said the commission should order MISO only to conduct a study of — and initiate a stakeholder process on — frequency response. It said the commission should “be cautious about approving that a new product (along with that product’s value suggested by IPL) be added to the MISO [Tariff] without first requiring a thorough vetting by MISO, the MISO transmission owners and other stakeholders.”

Battery maker Alevo USA also urged caution, saying IPL’s statements about the limitations of lithium ion batteries are “not necessarily correct.” It said it supports IPL’s intent to remove barriers to entry for storage. But it said FERC should order MISO to develop a “technology-neutral” market design rather than “pick[ing] winners and losers based on what IPL proposes.”

Also weighing in on the matter was NextEra Energy Resources, which asked the commission to coordinate its response to IPL with its actions in other proceedings, including the commission’s Notice of Inquiry on primary frequency response, in which the commission also took action last week (RM16-6). (See related story, FERC: Renewables Must Provide Frequency Response.)

“NextEra Resources agrees with IPL that MISO’s current energy and ancillary services products are unduly discriminatory with respect to storage resources attempting to provide service. However, the deficiencies with respect to MISO’s regulating service product are not unique to MISO or its regulation product,” NextEra said, adding that it and others had raised such concerns in AD16-20 regarding “a range of products in a number of RTOs/ISOs.”

NextEra also said it was concerned that IPL’s proposed compensation structure for primary frequency response lacks a capacity payment.

“Even when an RTO/ISO imposes particular dead band and droop settings to ensure that resources automatically provide primary frequency response, the resource must maintain sufficient headroom in order to be able to increase output in response to deviations when frequency is low. Yet holding back this capacity to be available to respond to under-frequency conditions comes at a cost. A capacity payment for primary frequency response would compensate resources for this opportunity cost and thereby ensure the resource will be available to respond, and should be a part of any RTO/ISO compensation mechanism for primary frequency response.”