MISO’s stakeholder meeting schedule for the rest of 2022 will maintain the reduced cadence that it introduced at the beginning of the year.

The main stakeholder committees will meet both in virtual and in-person formats eight times per year instead of monthly, which has displeased some stakeholders.

The RTO’s first schedule included meetings through May, with a commitment to assess the post-pandemic schedule’s effectiveness. Stakeholder committees usually set a full calendar year of meetings in December. (See Stakeholders Call for MISO to Rethink Pared-down Meeting Schedule.)

MISO’s head of stakeholder relations, Bob Kuzman, said the grid operator remains willing to devote extra time to important topics, as evidenced by scheduling a special April 15 stakeholder call and allotting additional time during an April 20 Resource Adequacy Subcommittee (RASC) teleconference to discuss capacity auction results. He pointed out that per stakeholder request, the RTO will also schedule a special workshop in June to discuss a new capacity accreditation for non-thermal generators.

Kuzman said during the RASC meeting that it’s easier to add special stakeholder workshops to a calendar containing fewer meetings.

But some stakeholders disagreed and said it was easier to cancel regularly scheduled meetings rather than pull together one-off workshops.  

“I think if there was a meeting in June, we wouldn’t have to schedule a workshop,” WEC Energy Group’s Chris Plante said of the RASC schedule. Plante said he would like to see the main stakeholder committees return to monthly meetings.

RASC Chair Kari Hassler said the new schedule’s rollout was probably “not the best,” but that it’s clear MISO has been trying to respond to stakeholder feedback.

Stakeholders are also trying to determine how best to suggest planning and market improvements with staff. The grid operator no longer conducts an annual stakeholder prioritization of market tasks and improvements under its Integrated Roadmap process.

Plante said MISO still needs an “avenue for stakeholders to opine on issues as they come up.”

“Rather than having paperwork, we’re going to rely on the discussions at the meetings themselves,” MISO’s Laura Rauch said during a Market Subcommittee teleconference last week.

She said if stakeholders come forward to the Steering Committee with important enough issues, MISO will urge them to make a presentation in stakeholder meetings.

The RTO said stakeholder-submitted issues “will be reviewed and placed on the management plan as appropriate,” provided they fit with MISO’s strategic plan, don’t negatively impact the markets and MISO has enough manpower to analyze solutions.