Entergy’s operating companies have mounted a campaign at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to override FERC’s rejection of MISO’s minimum capacity obligation.

The company’s Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Orleans and Texas subsidiaries maintain that MISO’s unsuccessful bid to require load-serving entities to demonstrate that they have obtained at least 50% of the capacity required to meet peak load obligations before auctions are held can be beneficial and help rectify capacity shortages. Entergy attorney Michael Griffen petitioned the D.C. Circuit Court for reconsideration in a Dec. 28 filing (22-1334).

FERC in late August and again in late October rejected MISO’s request to install a minimum capacity obligation. The commission found that the RTO did not prove that such a rule would address resource adequacy concerns or that it would incent members to construct new generation. (See Regulators, LSEs Ask FERC to Reconsider MISO’s Seasonal Capacity Accreditation.)

The grid operator disagreed. It has said that an obligation would foster sensible planning by its members and regulators and serve as a “guardrail” against reliance on its voluntary capacity auctions for anything more than residual capacity needs.

MISO has claimed that years of inexpensive capacity prices have accelerated generation retirements and held up new investment in generating facilities. It said some LSEs depend on its residual auctions to provide for all their capacity needs.

Entergy has also characterized a minimum capacity obligation as “a practical safeguard to ensure that LSEs engage in reasonable resource planning practices that will maintain reliability in the MISO region and help mitigate a capacity market free rider problem.”

The utility said that without the obligation, the RTO’s current resource adequacy construct allows LSEs to become too attached to auctions. It said the current environment “distort[s] planning, shift[s] substantial costs to other LSEs’ customers and ultimately negatively impact[s] reliability.”