NEW ORLEANS — In its first-ever current events discussion, the MISO Advisory Committee focused on moving on after the RTO’s failed capacity auction redesign.

MISO Executive Director of Market Design Jeff Bladen told the committee on March 22 that the RTO is open to revisiting discussion on another capacity auction solution only if stakeholders want it.

On Feb. 2, FERC rejected MISO’s proposed Competitive Retail Solution, which would have applied a sloped demand curve and three-year forward capacity auction to the RTO’s retail-choice areas.

The commission said bifurcating the RTO’s capacity market by holding a forward capacity auction for competitive load three years prior to the current Planning Resource Auction would create too much price volatility and uncertainty. A market-wide clearing process that operates within a single set of transmission capability constraints and supply offers is more efficient than a bifurcated market, FERC said. (See MISO Won’t Seek Rehearing on Auction Redesign.)

Entergy Vice President Matt Brown and other stakeholders said MISO should abandon its search for a solution to resource adequacy concerns in the competitive areas and focus on other ways to improve the PRA, including creating external resource zones and adding a seasonal aspect.

“I think our stakeholders have been very clear — and FERC has been very clear — that an Eastern-style capacity market is not right for MISO,” Brown said. “From our perspective … it’s time to let this go.”

NRG Energy’s Tia Elliott said Illinois’ legislation subsidizing nuclear plants and a Michigan law increasing the state’s renewable portfolio standard should not be considered a fix for climate warming concerns. Although the Trump administration hopes to kill EPA’s Clean Power Plan, MISO could be faced with similar environmental regulations in the future, she said. “The political landscape could swing again, and we could be back in the same situation.”

Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Matt Schuerger reminded stakeholders that ensuring adequate capacity is the responsibility of individual states.

OMS-MISO Survey Dispute Revisited

The committee also returned to stakeholders’ accusations that MISO and the Organization of MISO States have overstated a possible capacity shortfall through their joint resource adequacy survey. (See Differences Persist over OMS-MISO Survey Improvements.)

After a stakeholder pointed out that ERCOT was sued last year in an ongoing fraud case over misleading capacity reports, OMS member and Arkansas Public Service Commission Chairman Ted Thomas defended the survey.

“There isn’t a perfect way to do it. It’s a survey; it’s not a utility planning document,” Thomas said, adding that the survey was meant to help states understand their neighbors’ actions as they develop their own integrated resource plans.

Thomas said that if a utility is “dumb enough” to use the survey as a planning document, the utility deserves to get sued, not the producers of the survey. He also blamed local media for promoting a sky-is-falling narrative, saying reporters often don’t understand the survey results.

“Try explaining this stuff to a newspaper reporter,” he griped.

— Amanda Durish Cook