MISO’s Independent Market Monitor is angling for demand response offer floors and attestations of expected levels of energy consumption in the wake of an Arkansas steel mill’s gaming of the MISO demand response market.

Meanwhile, a second demand response resource in MISO might be under fire for promising load reductions and not delivering them.

In late August, FERC accepted a $35 million total settlement between Big River Steel in Osceola, Ark., Entergy Arkansas and FERC’s Office of Enforcement, of which $21 million will be returned to MISO customers. The steel mill for years collected payments from MISO for demand response while not actually reducing electricity use. (See FERC OKs $21M Settlement in Arkansas Steel Mill’s DR Scheme in MISO.)

Carrie Milton, of the Independent Market Monitor’s team, said the IMM is advising MISO to reinforce its rules for demand response resources (DRRs) “to prevent similar gaming in the future.”

“After seeing this kind of conduct, we have recommended [that] MISO establish an offer floor for DRRs and that DRRs indicate their forecasted, pre-curtailment expected consumption,” Milton said during an Oct. 5 Market Subcommittee meeting.

Milton said IMM staff recently referred another MISO DRR to the Office of Enforcement for offering “phantom load reductions” similar to Big River Steel. In this case, the unnamed company collected more than $35 million in payments from MISO.

Neither MISO nor the IMM revealed the name of the company involved with the possible new investigation. MISO said the IMM’s screening first uncovered the “information that led to FERC’s investigation” of Big River Steel.

Milton said the IMM team is working with MISO to gain support for the DRR rule changes.

MISO did not say whether it agrees with the IMM’s proposal but said it is open to exploring with stakeholders what improvements might be necessary.

“Following any situation like this, MISO is closely collaborating with the IMM and FERC to evaluate potential enhancements to help prevent similar conduct in the future, which will be vetted through MISO stakeholder process in an open and timely fashion,” spokesperson Brandon Morris said in an emailed statement to RTO Insider.