By Amanda Durish Cook

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Representatives of MISO sectors gathered Wednesday to discuss how a greater number of distributed energy resources could interact with the grid. Topics ranged from the gig economy to state jurisdiction to the socioeconomic barriers preventing some from obtaining those resources.

Vice President of System Operations Todd Ramey said DER “such as rooftop solar systems and microturbines” are not as widely used in MISO as in other RTOs.

“However, the MISO region could see a substantially higher penetration of distributed energy going forward as the costs of the resources continue to decline and if cities, states and the federal government continue to adopt policies that encourage their use,” Ramey said.

By 2030, installed photovoltaic resources could top 17 GW, while demand response and energy efficiency deployments could exceed 6 GW and 8 GW, respectively.

Discussion facilitator Julia Johnson, president of regulatory advising firm Net Communications, kicked off the discussion by engaging stakeholders, MISO staff and board members in a sing-along of Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop.”

“‘Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.’ That’s the trend. There hasn’t been much DER activity so far, but we plan for it,” Johnson said.

Defining DER

MISO presented a draft definition describing DER as power generation, storage or load-modifying resources connected either through a utility’s distribution system or behind the meter. DER can include photovoltaics, combined heat and power, cogeneration systems, reciprocating engines, combustion turbines, microturbines, wind turbines, back-up generators, energy storage and even DR and energy efficiency, according to the definition.

Most sectors, including the Organization of MISO States, agreed with MISO’s take. OMS organized an early August workshop in which state regulators and industry officials similarly explored DER topics, and has since formed a temporary work group to consider how to incorporate the resources into the grid. (See Stakeholders Hash out Future of DER at OMS Workshop.)

“Consumers [are] moving to being customers of the grid,” said John Moore, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who likened the energy customer transition to that of licensed drivers and the rise of Uber’s ride-share program.

Director Baljit Dail seized on the Uber analogy. “There may be a whole new player that comes into the mix and provides a platform for people with DER to sell,” Dail said.

Entergy’s Matt Brown said there will probably be a future need to designate a minimum megawatt participation limit on DER to include them in whatever market definition the RTO eventually settles on. “MISO might not be the appropriated entity to draw those lines,” Brown added.

“The advantage that we have here is that we really have some time to make some really elegant solutions,” Northern Indiana Public Service Co.’s Paul Kelley said.

“Let’s not lose sight of [the fact] that getting paid within MISO is not a trivial matter,” Dynegy’s Mark Volpe said. He said suppliers must go through the process of creating commercial pricing notes, signing agreements with MISO and posting collateral to get set up on the wholesale distribution level — none of which is an easy task.

State Jurisdiction

Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Matt Schuerger said that while DER rules will fall under state jurisdiction for resource adequacy, MISO, industry leaders and generation and transmission operators will play a vital role in coordinating and planning. “I think state regulators will need information from MISO to help make decisions,” he said.

Arkansas Public Service Commission Chairman Ted Thomas reiterated a warning issued by former FERC Commissioner Tony Clark at the OMS DER workshop, saying states will get rules mandated to them by FERC if they fail to write their own.

“States can [wait to] act and wait for FERC to act, and what we’ll get is a velvet glove around an iron fist — one size fits all,” he said.

Wind on the Wires’ Beth Soholt pointed out that many Midwest manufacturing plants are already beginning to alter their energy supply mix to meet renewable goals. “You’re going to continue to see this trend ripple through large energy customers,” she said. Soholt said MISO planning might need to look past demand, including at customer preference. She said as long as demand growth remains the single most important factor in transmission planning, MISO will not have a complete picture of the future.

“I think people think, ‘demand is going down, so we don’t need to plan as much transmission or generation. Customers want a particular kind of mix. … I worry about that if we just look at demand in and of itself, that’s not capturing all the value that these resources have to offer,” she said.

At a Sept. 21 Board of Directors meeting, Executive Vice President of Operations Clair Moeller told board members that MISO is overall moving to a “less peak, more load served” model with the contributing factor of electric vehicles.

Missouri Public Service Commission economist Adam McKinnie agreed that the “haircut of load growth” has been an obstacle in recent transmission planning studies by consulting firm Applied Energy Group.

McKinnie said some states, including his own, collect rooftop solar data, and those numbers could be passed on to MISO planners.

“This could be an example of how the states could gather and provide MISO with information, so MISO doesn’t have to guess,” he said.

Dail urged stakeholders to give MISO guidance on DER market rules. “You didn’t want a MISO that picked winners and loser in regards to technology,” he reminded them.

Moore said MISO must avoid “siloing,” referring to the tendency for DER information to remain in just one database.

“Is there siloing occurring at the distribution level that prevents a complete picture of how much distributed energy is bubbling up?” he asked.

Socioeconomic Differences

Brown said MISO and industry leaders must also pay attention to distributed energy trends in wealthy communities versus poverty-stricken areas, contrasting the incomes in the toney Twin Cities suburb of Maple Grove with those of Flint, Mich., both in the MISO footprint.

“It’s easy to lose sight of how large our footprint is. It’s easy to make sweeping statements like ‘customers want this’ or ‘customers want that,’ but we have to remember the range of customers we have,” Brown said.

Director Thomas Rainwater thanked Brown for bringing up the socioeconomic disparity across the footprint.

“I happen to live within 40 minutes from Flint,” Rainwater said. “One of the great inventions of the last 100 years is the electrification of households and the health and economic benefits that it brings … but there are those that have been left behind. I think that we can all agree that while solar is great and wind is great, the early [residential] adopters are in the upper strata. We need to not lose sight of that.”

Director Todd Raba said regulators and industry officials have an “ethical” obligation to pay attention to keeping costs low for their poorest customers.