May in MISO proved no trouble for control room operators.
MISO averaged 70 GW of average systemwide load, lower than 2022’s 73 GW average. The footprint registered a 102-GW monthly peak on May 31. Operators also noted a 2.8 GW all-time solar peak on May 25, when panels supplied 4.3% of system load at midday.
Real-time locational marginal prices dropped by nearly two-thirds from last May, at $26/MWh, with natural gas prices sliding from about $8/MMBtu to around $2/MMBtu year-over-year. Natural gas generation supplied 42% of the energy mix; coal accounted for 24%, while wind generation and nuclear took a 16% and 14% share, respectively.
MISO recorded an average 55 GW of daily generation outages in May, on par with the same time last year and in 2021.
Meanwhile, MISO has declared its first capacity advisories and conservative operations instructions of the summer. It preemptively issued a capacity advisory for June 29 until further notice due to extreme heat indexes in the region. Parts of Louisiana are expected to reach triple-digit heat indexes through the weekend.
The grid operator called conservative operations, a capacity advisory and a hot weather alert for MISO South June 26 as the region weathered the continued heatwave. The short-lived warnings were issued and terminated a few hours later in the afternoon.
Earlier, MISO declared conservative operations for northern portions of its footprint on June 22 and 23 due to higher-than-anticipated load and heavy transfers.
MISO is forecasting summer heat to be front-loaded in June. (See MISO: Little Firm Capacity to Spare This Summer.)
