By Amanda Durish Cook
CARMEL, Ind. — Midwest gas-fired generators have made incremental improvements to ensure fuel supply over the past year, MISO stakeholders learned Thursday.
At a Feb. 1 Reliability Subcommittee meeting, MISO Electric-Gas Operations Coordinator Phil Van Schaack said the RTO’s winter fuel survey shows generators made “modest improvements to fuel assurance” this winter when compared to statistics from the 2016/17 annual survey.
The report indicates that 44% of MISO’s 70.7 GW in natural gas capacity have either access to firm transportation or dual-fuel capability, up from the 40% reported last year.
The RTO’s remaining capacity either relies on a combination of firm transport and interruptible transport (33%) or all interruptible transport (8%). MISO also reported that 17.8 GW of natural gas plants holding firm transportation contracts say their firm transport is shared across multiple generators within their resource portfolios, a small decrease from last year’s results.
Van Schaack also said the number of generators subscribing to flexible pipeline services increased moderately over the last year.
More needs to be done in testing dual-fuel capability ahead of time, he said. Thirty percent of MISO’s dual-fuel generators have tested their backup fuel in the last three months, while 50% have operated on backup fuel within the last year.
Gas-fired facilities with dual-fuel capability account for just under 18 GW (25%) of the gas capacity in the MISO footprint. Approximately 63 GW of MISO’s gas-fired capacity answered the 2017 survey, representing 89% of the capacity registered in the RTO’s commercial model. MISO’s total natural gas capacity accounts for 41% of its total capacity.
Van Shaack said independent power producers and qualifying facilities predominately located in MISO South comprised the remaining 7.5 GW of natural gas generation that did not respond to the survey.
MISO credited its improved gas-electric communication, including the survey, for helping the RTO reliably navigate the cold snap that swept most of MISO in early January. (See MISO Breaks down Recent Cold Snap.) The survey specifically improved situational awareness during the extreme weather, the RTO said.
The survey also revealed that 58% of responding gas-fired generation owners are comfortable that their current pipeline service offerings meet their generation needs, with 11% saying they are dissatisfied and another 18% admitting they could use additional service.
