MISO is debuting more online interactions after scheduling fewer stakeholder committee meetings at the beginning of the year.
During a special Tuesday workshop, MISO’s Alison Lane said the RTO has launched more comprehensive, 18-month rolling workplans for its stakeholder committees and a webpage to review stakeholder feedback on agenda items and the grid operator’s responses.
The features are meant to augment the abbreviated meeting schedule. (See Stakeholders Call for MISO to Rethink Pared-down Meeting Schedule.)
Lane said MISO will continue with consent agenda items at meetings. She said although these post-only documents will not get staff presentations, stakeholders can still pose questions and strike up discussions during meetings. The RTO said the post-only items are meant for “self-explanatory, non-controversial” updates.
Clean Grid Alliance’s Rhonda Peters said some tariff and business practice manual changes have been “inappropriately” relegated to a post-only format when they merited dialogue.
Natalie McIntire, also from Clean Grid Alliance, asked that staff leave sufficient discussion time for post-only agenda items.
Lane said MISO’s stakeholder relations team will begin keeping records on how long it takes to move through agenda items to better plan meetings.
Lane said topics that don’t receive much stakeholder attention on the feedback webpage will be closed out. Topics that draw more responses or disagreement will receive more discussion time at upcoming meetings.
Stakeholders can use the feedback page to receive email notifications on agenda items that they want to closely monitor.
Staff said they have also streamlined the MISO Dashboard, formerly the issues-tracking tool, so it’s easier to keep up with committees’ focus areas.
Lane asked stakeholders to reach out to MISO with their thoughts on the webpage’s features.
Coalition of Midwest Power Producers’ Travis Stewart asked the RTO to consider giving stakeholders longer than the requisite two weeks after meetings to provide written reactions to discussions and presentations. Lane said the grid operator will likely stick with the two-week comment deadline to post “beefier” feedback responses that better explain staff’s reasoning behind their positions.
MISO is resisting stakeholder calls to shelve its new stakeholder committee schedule, which puts fewer meetings on the calendar. Multiple committee chairs have warned that more infrequent meetings won’t give the RTO enough time to flesh out the changes it needs to make to keep up with the energy industry’s rapid transformation.
In May, MISO is due to check in with stakeholders and examine whether the new meeting schedule is working well enough to permanently continue.
During a Wednesday Steering Committee meeting, exiting Market Subcommittee Chair Megan Wisersky said she hopes stakeholders continue to evaluate whether fewer meeting dates are sufficient.
