By Amanda Durish Cook
CARMEL, Ind. — MISO is looking to improve its annual resource adequacy survey by expanding the scope of potential projects included in the report, but some stakeholders are still questioning the survey’s credibility.
The survey — a joint undertaking between MISO and the Organization of MISO States — tracks resource adequacy through reports made by load-serving entities. The 2016 survey forecasted a possible capacity shortfall in the RTO by 2018. (See OMS-MISO Survey: Generation Shortfall Possible.)
The RTO wants to include more potential future resources in the survey’s regional and zonal weighted averages, Darrin Landstrom, MISO’s resource forecasting adviser, said during a Feb. 8 Resource Adequacy Subcommittee meeting.
Landstrom said the survey currently counts only future resources that have already executed a generator interconnection agreement. The RTO is also considering rolling a 35% share of the capacity from resources sitting in the definitive planning phase of the interconnection queue into the survey’s low-certainty resource total.
Using a sample of natural gas projects entering the queue in 2012, 37% failed after entering the definitive planning phase, while 26% ultimately executed generator interconnection agreements. According to Landstrom, the sample left MISO with a possible percentage somewhere between a conservative 26% success rate to a best-case 63% (assuming every project that enters the definitive planning phase will sign a GIA).
MISO’s use of the 35% value in the 2017 survey would be re-examined next year after the RTO completes the launch of its new queue process.
The RTO had additionally considered the idea of including in the survey projects in the system planning analysis stage of the interconnection queue, active projects in the queue that have yet to sign interconnection agreements and planned projects not yet in the queue.
Some stakeholders argued that the 35% figure was arbitrary.
“Ultimately, the OMS-MISO survey is a range of possibilities,” responded Laura Rauch, MISO manager of resource adequacy coordination.
Asked by RASC Chair Gary Mathis whether the proposal had OMS’s support, Bonnie Janssen of the Michigan Public Service Commission responded that the proposal largely represented the RTO’s work.
While stakeholders expressed concern that no planned resources in the definitive planning phase make it into the survey’s high-certainty category, Landstrom pointed out that projects in the definitive planning phase with generator interconnection agreements are counted among high-certainty resources.
Rauch said MISO does not want to imply that planned projects are “a done deal” by assigning them high-certainty designations. She said the move could send the wrong signal to state regulators, who might reject other projects because they assume the likelihood of a planned project included in the survey with high-certainty status.
Wisconsin Public Service’s Chris Plante said MISO might be able to issue information without editorializing by discontinuing high- or low-certainty designations, which some stakeholders think gives the survey a conservative bias that suggests a resource adequacy problem.
Mathis contended that people tend to pay attention to what’s high-certainty rather than low-certainty.
“Is the load growth in the survey high-certainty?” he jokingly asked.
Rauch said that while MISO is focused on signed and committed projects, the survey could concentrate more on a range of possibilities.
In filings made last year to oppose MISO’s retooled auction design, the Coalition of MISO Transmission Customers and the Illinois Industrial Energy Consumers said the survey does not give a “complete reflection of the future capacity needs in the MISO region.” Stakeholders also questioned why last year’s capacity auction results showed a larger surplus than the survey results for a second year in a row.
Jeff Bladen, executive director of market services, said MISO “remains confident” that the survey is the best forward-looking predictor of resource adequacy.
