By Amanda Durish Cook
CARMEL, Ind. —The MISO Board of Directors last week stepped in to order a plan of succession for the RTO’s executive leadership, while also approving its requested 2018 budget.
As part of the plan, the board immediately promoted Executive Vice President of Operations Clair Moeller to president, a permanent appointment. In the event of unforeseen circumstances related to CEO John Bear, Moeller would act as CEO, the board decided.
The RTO’s board usually takes a “nose in, fingers out” approach except when it comes to matters of personnel succession and strategic planning, Chair Michael Curran explained during a Dec. 7 meeting. He said the appointment will ensure that MISO is spared uncertainty in the event that Bear leaves his post.
For example, Curran joked, “if John gets hit by a truck, wins the lottery [or] beamed up by a spaceship.”
The board also approved a $321.7 million total operating budget and $29.6 million in capital spending for 2018.
As part of the budget, MISO will spend $21.7 million to begin replacing its aging market platform with a more adaptable modular market platform, a project it expects to complete by 2024. (See Winter Launch for MISO Website, Market System Project.) The RTO’s existing market platform relies on technology from the late 1990s, while its day-ahead and real-time market systems were added around 2005. The age of the system is limiting the new market products MISO can pursue.
“It’s approaching its teen years — God help us all,” Dynegy’s Mark Volpe joked during a Dec. 6 Advisory Committee meeting.
Alliant Energy’s Mitch Myhre, chair of the MISO Finance Subcommittee, said his group will track spending on the project.
“This is a big deal. $130 million is half of MISO’s annual budget,” Volpe said.
To date, MISO is under its 2017 base operating budget by about $1.8 million and predicts it will end the year having spent $240.8 million instead of the budgeted $241.7 million.
Chief Financial Officer Melissa Brown said the savings will result from not implementing a previously planned forward capacity market for the RTO’s deregulated areas, as well as lower-then-expected spending on building maintenance and employee travel.
MISO is $500,000 overbudget on this year’s capital spending but is poised to shrink the overage to $200,000 by year-end. The increase was mainly driven by the RTO’s effort to replace its market settlements software.
Last week also marked Director Paul Bonavia’s final meeting on the board, with his term expiring Dec. 31. In parting remarks, Bonavia called MISO a “civics lesson” and said the RTO was proof that decorum and cooperation could exist in an industry with several competing interests. “It’s positively breathtaking, with how you come together representing different interests but still have goodwill and move billions of dollars in investment,” he said.
Former Delta Air Lines Chief Information Officer Theresa Wise will replace Bonavia beginning Jan. 1. (See New Director to Join MISO Board, 2 Keep Seats.)
