By Amanda Durish Cook

MISO’s Market Subcommittee last week agreed to explore the possibility of creating a new market mechanism to compensate resources for delivering system restoration energy when the real-time market has ceased to function.

The committee decided by consent at a Nov. 8 meeting to both discuss the issue at future meetings and allow a five-year-old white paper on the topic to be the starting point of the discussions, although the paper leaves many details open-ended. (See Old Analysis Could Guide MISO Restoration Pricing Effort.)

The white paper proposes a framework to allow MISO to adjust real-time prices for islanded areas to facilitate market settlements while giving generators the ability to make further revenue adjustments to ensure adequate compensation for providing energy.

MISO Director of Market Services John Weissenborn said the plan requires further evaluation and several specifics. He said the RTO’s current settlement rules still need to be researched for their applicability during restoration events.

“We would like to leverage existing settlement rules when appropriate,” Weissenborn said.

He also said MISO would have to consider that its Inter-Control Center Communications Protocol may be unavailable or performing poorly following a blackout, and that market concepts such as following dispatch instructions may not be relevant in such an event.

MISO must also develop a process to verify and review generators’ costs and a timeline for doing so, Weissenborn said. He said stakeholders may have to examine any resulting compensation rules for their compliance with state regulations.

Weissenborn said MISO will begin scheduling working sessions with stakeholders in January to develop a framework for a possible Tariff filing.

Though a restoration pricing structure is currently on “parking lot” — or hold — status in MISO’s Market Roadmap list of potential market improvements, RTO staff said the project could be called up for reconsideration in light of the Steering Committee’s July directive to the MSC to re-examine the issue after five years of inactivity. (See MISO Stakeholders to Reconsider Restoration Pricing.)

MSC Chair Megan Wisersky said the project should not affect MISO’s yearslong, phased replacement of its market platform. The RTO has put multiple market improvements on hold while it dedicates manpower to the goal of having a partially operational modular platform in place by 2021.