By Amanda Durish Cook

NEW ORLEANS — While MISO’s various sectors last week voiced differences in their views of what constitutes grid resilience, they could agree on one thing: Its specific attributes are still difficult to pin down.

Resilience was in the spotlight after MISO stakeholders selected the subject as their quarterly “hot topic” industry discussion held before the RTO’s Board of Directors on March 28.

Meeting participants offered a mixed bag of suggestions.

Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Matt Schuerger agreed with FERC’s definition of resilience as the “ability to withstand and reduce the magnitude and/or duration of disruptive events, which includes the capability to anticipate, absorb, adapt to and/or rapidly recover from such an event.”

But Schuerger said he sees a lot of overlap between reliability and resilience, making the latter largely covered by NERC’s portfolio of standards.

Otter Tail Power’s Stacie Hebert said some of MISO’s transmission-owning members viewed resilience more narrowly as the ability of the system to recover from a failed state.

‘Resilient Reliability’

MISO’s Environmental sector is concerned about double-counting resilience as resource adequacy and reliability, said sector representative John Moore, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC Project. He argued instead that there are degrees between “fragile reliability” and “resilient reliability.”

“So much of what MISO already does in planning relates to resilience indirectly or directly,” Moore said.

Coal- and oil-fired generators became comparatively economic during early January’s cold snap because they had not been regularly run until emergency conditions nudged them “higher in the dispatch stack,” he said. “They were the most expensive resources in the system until we needed all resources.”

North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak said states may have to increasingly turn to MISO’s markets to fulfill generation requirements as uneconomic units retire.

Alliant Energy’s Mitchell Myhre said his Transmission-Dependent Utilities sector was trying to avoid being “too prescriptive” in defining resilience, a concept he called “hard to define.”

Still, others saw a clearer distinction between resilience and reliability.

“My kids will never know what it’s like to sit around with candles playing war games during a thunderstorm because the power is out. That just doesn’t happen anymore. That’s reliability,” Wisconsin Public Service Commissioner Mike Huebsch said. Resilience goes further than that, entailing better communication between grid operators, utilities and customers when disruptions occur, he said.

MISO Already Managing Resilience

Multiple members said MISO already has processes in place to tackle resilience.

“We think MISO is resilient. It’s always been part of our base business, even if we didn’t call it resilience,” said MISO Vice President of System Planning Jennifer Curran.

In response to FERC’s call for RTO/ISO comments on resilience in early March, MISO reported no “imminent or immediate” concerns in its footprint and pointed out that its stakeholder processes and projects have been geared toward resilience “for nearly two decades.” (See “MISO: Work Already in Progress,” RTO Resilience Filings Seek Time, More Gas Coordination.)

“The resilience issue is broader than the transmission grid, and we all have a role to play in ensuring resilience,” Curran told stakeholders.

Director Baljit Dail asked sectors what the RTO should do incrementally beyond what it already does.

“It seems to me that the bulk of the resilience issue is not at the MISO-level, but the distribution level, and that’s not MISO’s purview, but all of you sitting around this table,” he told members.

Moore said MISO could expand cybersecurity measures, with which Dail agreed.

Kevin Murray, representing the Coalition of Midwest Transmission Customers and MISO’s End-User Customers sector, pointed out that much of the RTO’s cybersecurity efforts can only be discussed in closed-session meetings to avoid release of sensitive information.

“I think one of the things that will be a challenge for us is sharing as much of that information as we can,” board Chair Michael Curran agreed.

Director Todd Raba said it seems the distinctions between transmission and distribution systems are becoming increasingly blurred. He rhetorically asked if MISO and its members have to reorganize the metrics placed on each system.

Schueguer said it will be a state-by-state choice to develop mandates to “harden” the distribution system.

‘Accidental’ Resilience

Independent Power Producers sector leader Barry Trayers said he thought MISO is heading toward resilience “almost accidentally” with increased distributed energy resources and a more diverse fuel mix.

“This movement towards DER should bolster the system because there’s less risk of a single large contingency,” said Director Thomas Rainwater.

The difference between the electrical recoveries from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year should help MISO and stakeholders define resilience attributes, Rainwater said. He pointed out that parts of Puerto Rico still don’t have power six months after the storm.

Murray pointed out that during hurricanes last year in Florida, bucket trucks and lineman were already queuing up before they hit, readying restoration efforts.

Director Mark Johnson said MISO and its members will at some point have to identify a list of the likely low-probability, high-impact events that could occur in the 15 states in its footprint, as well as the Canadian province of Manitoba.

“The actions that need to be taken will be very much event-specific,” Johnson said.

“There comes a point where maybe we put pen to paper or steel to ground,” agreed Advisory Committee Chair Audrey Penner.

Studying Weather Events

End-Use Customers sector representative and Louisiana Public Service Commission counsel Katherine King said a better understanding of resilience will require MISO to conduct an in-depth investigation into its South region’s two most recent maximum generation events: one last April after heavy outages and high temperatures, and another in mid-January triggered by extreme cold. (See “Several Factors in Spring MISO South Maximum Generation Event,” Louisiana Regulators Question MISO South Max Gen Event.)

“I think it’s very important to go back in after these events occur and ask what caused them and what we can do better,” King said.

The Louisiana PSC is opening a docket and scheduling a technical conference to investigate the January maximum generation event, King added.

Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley said the RTO should also study contingency impacts on the 3,000-MW contract path connecting MISO Midwest and South.

“Everybody has an interest in that connection and woe be it on us if we ignore that,” Presley said.

Rainwater said any changes made in the name of resilience must be cost-effective.

“At the end of the day, the end-use customers will have to pay for whatever resiliency measures we deem necessary, and we have to keep that in mind. We cannot build the system to protect it from … interruptions of any kind,” Rainwater said.