MISO and the Organization of MISO States have begun distributing their annual joint resource adequacy survey with a new calculation method some stakeholders believe is overly conservative.

In addition to counting as available capacity all generation projects with signed interconnection agreements — as in the past — this year’s survey will also count 35% of those in the definitive planning phase of the queue, Darrin Landstrom, MISO resource forecasting adviser, said during an April 5 workshop on the survey.

The surveys, which were sent to load-serving entities on March 31, will ask for the queue project number as well as status. Responses are due April 30.

Some MISO stakeholders maintain the 35% estimate is too conservative, resulting in unnecessarily alarming results and exaggerating a possible capacity shortfall. Last month, Resource Adequacy Subcommittee Chair Chris Plante notified the RTO’s Board of Directors of the disagreement. (See Differences Persist over OMS-MISO Survey Improvements and “OMS-MISO Survey Dispute Revisited,” MISO Advisory Committee Briefs.)

The surveys continue to use the “high-” and “low-certainty” descriptors, although MISO said it will convert those terms to “committed” and “potential” when the RTO and OMS present results in June.

— Amanda Durish Cook