CARMEL, Ind. — MISO is conducting a check-in with stakeholders to gauge whether its market design guiding principles are still valid in a changing industry.
The RTO asked stakeholders at an Aug. 29 meeting of the Reliability Subcommittee to evaluate whether its 10-year-old principles are still in lockstep with the functioning of MISO markets.
MISO’s five guiding principles are standing up an “economically efficient” wholesale market system, fostering nondiscriminatory market participation, maintaining transparent market pricing, facilitating efficient operational and investment decisions among market participants, and aligning market requirements with reliability requirements.
MISO adviser Kim Sperry said the RTO references the decisions in its tariff filings to FERC, when designing new market products and when leading stakeholder discussion. “Maybe there’s an area where we can make an adjustment,” Sperry said.
At the Market Subcommittee meeting, adviser Michael Robinson similarly approached stakeholders. He set the stage by describing 2014’s Polar Vortex, which ultimately led to the guiding principles and a redesign of MISO’s scarcity pricing.
“The year is 2014, we just incorporated MISO South, operators still [are] getting their feet wet in operating this broader footprint,” he said.
Robinson said the near emergency caused MISO to rethink its emergency pricing and led it to establish its two-step emergency pricing floors. He said examining the principles now makes sense given the industry’s reshuffle.
At the meeting, Clean Grid Alliance’s David Sapper suggested MISO consider adding a sector dedicated to industry disruptors, whose innovative ideas could “breathe life into market principles” and further competition. Sapper pointed out that MISO accepts coal interests in its Affiliate Sector, which was created in 2020 and is MISO’s newest member sector.
“This might be a missing puzzle piece. The point is not that there’s pent-up demand. The point is MISO opening doors,” Sapper said. He also suggested it include a nod to fairness and social welfare in the principles, something he said is missing today.
Mississippi Public Service Commission consultant Bill Booth said the RTO could perform backward-looking check-ins to make sure the new market rules it establishes are effective.
“It’d be nice if our guiding principles included a verification. … We don’t check our work. What do we do after the fact to validate that our theoretical choices are practical?” Booth asked.
MISO staff said their market implementation team was created specifically to check in on whether MISO’s proposals are working as intended and perform tests after the fact. Dustin Grethen said the RTO has checked in recently on its fast-ramping product and its short-term reserve product.
Sperry said MISO will accept stakeholders’ ideas through Sept. 13.
