CARMEL, Ind. — In spite of higher outages, some instances of severe weather and more expensive natural gas, MISO staff reported smooth market operations overall in March.
Systemwide energy prices averaged $29.51/MWh in March, about 50% higher than March 2016. The increase was owed mostly to an increase in natural gas prices, which jumped 63% from a year earlier, MISO said at an April 25 Informational Forum. Day-ahead prices averaged $29.44/MWh for the month. Natural gas prices at the Henry Hub and Chicago Citygate rose about $1/MMBtu from last March.
Colder temperatures in the MISO footprint drove load to an average 70.8 GW during March, a 2.4-GW year-over-year increase.
MISO Executive Director of System Operations Renuka Chatterjee said markets easily navigated an 88-GW load peak on March 15, even with planned and forced outages hitting a total 43.4 GW, a product of the spring maintenance season. She also said markets were largely unaffected by tornadoes and thunderstorms in MISO’s South and Central regions.
However, 14.6 GW of forced generation outages and high load drove up congestion, leading to real-time LMP spikes at the Texas and Louisiana hubs, hitting $54/MWh and $40/MWh, respectively. As a result, MISO monitored deviations between day-ahead and real-time pricing for the month. Price divergence averaged 24%, compared to last March’s 12%.
MISO also paid extra attention to its scheduling of units for the month after a unit was unnecessarily given a delayed stop time on March 12. Chatterjee said the inefficient scheduling of just one unit caused the metric to be flagged for monitoring.
“That goes to show how tight these metrics have become,” she said.
NERC Official: Shifting Resource Mix Could Mean Standards Revision
Some reliability standards could use an update to reflect the increasing adoption of renewable generation sources, NERC Chief Reliability Officer Mark Lauby said in a report on the organization’s 2017 reliability leadership summit in March.
Lauby said the existing AC system will have to accommodate a changing resource mix in the near term and grid operators will have to make sure enough energy is on hand. Shifting resources may require a revision of some standards, Lauby said, such as NERC’s revised definition for the Bulk Electric System, which includes thresholds of 20 MW for individual facilities and 75 MW for aggregate facilities.
“We’re going to be working with industry to review these standards and see what … standards need updating,” Lauby said. “I just worry about the speed. I don’t want to look in the rearview mirror and wish I would have done something. It’s going to take some good analysis.”
He said NERC also wants to make sure that state regulators fully understand the impacts of any renewable portfolio standards they might pass.
“When it comes to standards for reliability, I think of what Scotty said to Captain Kirk [in “Star Trek”]: ‘I can’t change the laws of physics,’” he joked.
MISO Deputy General Counsel Eric Stephens asked what industry employees can do to mitigate reliability risks. Lauby said those in the energy industry can make risks to reliability known through outreach.
“I think we also need to understand implications themselves. … Some folks said it could be 60% of generation on the distributed side [in the future]. We need to understand what those implications are and how those standards need to be adjusted for more ramping, voltage support and frequency response.”
Lauby also thanked MISO for its vigilance. “I have to say, I really appreciate the continued focus MISO has on reliability.”
The RTO, meanwhile, is weighing whether to submit comments to NERC on cutting back on the amount of revised and new standards it introduces annually.
MISO Consulting Advisor Terry Bilke said NERC rolls out 35 to 40 changes to standards and new standards per year. At the April Reliability Subcommittee meeting, he said the RTO might offer comments to NERC on how to “stabilize” the standards.
Bilke also said MISO believes that NERC should be required to meet criteria before introducing new or revised reliability standards.
MISO Hurricane Prep in May
The RTO will conduct hurricane action plan training with MISO South member operators throughout May in preparation for the Atlantic hurricane season beginning in June. It also will host emergency communication presentations for state and local emergency officials.
“We haven’t had one yet, but I do think it’s inevitable, obviously, and we want to be ready for that,” MISO CEO John Bear said.
The RTO convened a hurricane readiness team last spring to spot inadequacies in contingency plans and train MISO South operators. (See MISO Sees Enough Capacity for Summer.)
— Amanda Durish Cook
