MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Now in its fifth year, MISO’s market system replacement project is focusing on a one-stop model manager, new energy management system and day-ahead market-clearing engine.
MISO Vice President Todd Ramey said during the Board of Directors’ March 22 Technology Committee meeting that staff hopes to retire its existing model-management procedure by the end of the year. Going forward, the RTO will rely on a standardized model manager that will be improved upon through 2024, with monthly updates instead of quarterly refreshes.
The grid operator receives modeling data from more than 60 transmission owners and nearly 600 market participants. Ramey said that currently the submission methods vary and require manual validation of the data.
The RTO also plans to test its new energy management system this year and prepare for parallel operations in 2023. The EMS system was delivered last year by General Electric; it’s also slated to deliver the new day-ahead market-clearing engine by the end of 2023.
Ramey said General Electric has two dedicated teams for MISO’s market system, one working on the market clearing engine and another devoted to the EMS.
MISO’s market platform project is set to conclude in late 2024 when the real-time market fully migrates to the new, modular platform.
“This is critical to all the things we want to do to facilitate the change that’s coming,” MISO CEO John Bear said, referring to the new platform.
Later this year, the RTO must add an energy storage participation model to its legacy market platform. Staff have said they couldn’t simultaneously roll out the energy storage offers mandated by FERC Order 841 while working on the platform replacement. FERC has said storage participation couldn’t wait, so MISO must introduce the storage participation model on both its old and new market platforms. (See MISO: No Choice but to Double Up on 841 Compliance.)
During Thursday’s board meeting, Bear said MISO’s quarterly progress report on the market platform was brief, which he said was a good sign. He said Ramey and his team were making such good progress that there was little to report.
Director Todd Raba asked whether the RTO is stepping up cybersecurity measures following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. has put the private sector on notice that Russia may launch cyberattacks in retaliation for Western sanctions.
Chief Information Security Officer Keri Glitch said staff understands that Russia is ramping up “preparatory action” for a cyberattack, including scanning websites for security cracks.
“We continue to take appropriate actions,” Glitch said, adding that MISO regularly reviews updates from government authorities. Staff further addressed the situation in a closed session following the technology committee meeting.
