FERC on Friday ruled that MISO generation owners must now give a year’s advance notice to the grid operator before they can retire or suspend resources.
The commission approved MISO’s request to double the amount of time it has historically required GOs to submit the notices under Attachment Y of the tariff, effective Monday (ER23-630).
The RTO’s requirement that notices be submitted four full quarterly study periods in advance is just one piece of a more rigorous generation-retirement proposal. The grid operator will now conduct retirement reliability studies in batches on a quarterly basis and include extra analysis of thermal, voltage, stability and import limitations. Staff will also halve the time, from 75 to 150 calendar days, that they’ve allotted themselves to notify GOs whether their resources are needed for reliability purposes. (See MISO to File More Stringent Generator Retirement Study Process.)
MISO said it needs the additional notice to better analyze an anticipated slew of retirement requests. FERC agreed.
“As MISO explains, it expects to continue receiving a substantial amount of Attachment Y notices for generator suspensions and retirements,” the commission wrote. “We find that the revisions will enhance the study process by allowing MISO more time to conduct the Attachment Y study that is needed to assess whether the reliability of the MISO transmission system is impacted by specific unit suspensions and retirements.”
FERC’s order also stimulated debate over whether the RTO should share some details of the confidential retirement notices it receives.
The footprint’s industrial customers asked FERC to require more transparency from MISO about its members’ retirement plans, saying the grid operator is “falling short of promoting full and robust transparency that enables forward market signals regarding generation suspensions and retirements for resource adequacy and transmission planning.”
The RTO should immediately and publicly disclose Attachment Y notices it receives so utilities can make timely plans for new generation or demand management, the customers said. FERC said the request was beyond the scope of the proceeding.
Commissioner Allison Clements said though she ultimately agreed with the decision, the secrecy surrounding MISO generation retirements might need some loosening. She said the extended-notice requirement could lead to GOs keeping their suspension and retirement plans under wraps longer.
“Transparency in this context requires a balance between generation owners’ desire for confidentiality and the consumer benefits of earlier notice to allow market forces and planning processes to efficiently respond to generation supply changes,” she wrote. “However, I am not convinced that MISO’s current confidentiality provisions strike that balance appropriately.”
Clements encouraged MISO and its stakeholders to discuss whether “more timely public notice of forthcoming suspensions and retirements is feasible.”
“The primary basis for MISO’s proposal in this proceeding is that the number of generator suspension and retirement requests has substantially increased in recent years, and MISO expects that trend to continue. This means that potential negative effects of insufficient transparency will only grow as the fleet transition continues,” she said.
