CARMEL, Ind. — MISO is well-positioned to comply with FERC’s recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on fast-start pricing, RTO market design engineer Congcong Wang said at a Jan. 12 Market Subcommittee meeting.
The RTO will apply a fast-start definition to any dispatchable resource with a 10-minute start-up time and a minimum runtime of an hour or less.
Comments on the NOPR (RM17-3) are due Feb. 28. (See FERC: Let Fast-Start Resources Set Prices.)
Wang said the first phase of MISO’s Extended Locational Marginal Pricing (ELMP), already implemented, fulfills all the NOPR’s criteria. The second phase will expand the fast-start definition to online units with a one-hour start-up time. (See “MISO to Expand ELMP Price Setting, but not to IMM’s Specs,” MISO Market Subcommittee Briefs.)
MISO is currently drafting Tariff redline changes and hopes to post them publicly by Jan. 20, Wang said. Phase two of ELMP should be in place by May 1.
MISO IMM Warns Again of PJM Pseudo-Ties
MISO’s Market Monitor continues to be “very concerned” about the growing number of generators pseudo-tying into PJM.
In a recently issued report, Monitor David Patton identified several events during the period “where congestion management was negatively impacted by pseudo-tied resources.” Patton still advocates for MISO to develop a firm capacity delivery procedure to replace pseudo-ties.
Patton noted that MISO’s firm capacity delivery proposal — offered to PJM staff early last year — was “unilaterally” opposed by the neighboring RTO. He said he is not aware of any proposal developed by PJM.
“You could make the argument that PJM is not complying with FERC,” Patton said. He added that he didn’t blame MISO for the lack of action, as the RTO is not able to prohibit pseudo-ties unless there is a reliability concern or a transmission issue.
“Lights aren’t going to go out — it’s just going to be a lot more expensive to manage the congestion,” Patton said. “I don’t think on an economic basis, MISO can say, ‘We’re not going to allow pseudo-ties.’”
Last October, Patton said that he and MISO were considering opening a Section 206 proceeding against PJM to force a Tariff change, but they were discouraged by MISO’s board, which cautioned against “weaponizing” FERC filings. (See MISO Agrees to Implement Most of IMM’s Recommendations.)
In November, MISO and PJM agreed not to publicly discuss the ongoing problem of pseudo-tie congestion double-counting until the resolution of a FERC complaint (EL16-108). (See PJM, MISO Go Quiet on Pseudo-Ties; Reach Interface Pricing Accord.)
Credit Settlements Working Group on the Rocks
MISO may retire its Credit Settlements Working Group because of a lack of substantive work and stakeholder volunteers willing to chair the group.
A motion to retire the group at its Jan. 10 meeting failed when stakeholders decided against altogether disbanding a forum dedicated to credit settlements, outgoing CSWG Chair Matt Pringle said. Stakeholders instead called for future educational conferences related to credit settlements.
“There’s been a lot of value in this working group over the years, and I think it should continue on in some form,” Pringle said.
The CSWG’s next meeting is tentatively scheduled for April, but it’s still unclear whether it will take place. The group met just three times in 2016.
MISO stakeholder relations representative Alison Lane said the working group could be repurposed into a user group, which means fewer meetings. Market Subcommittee liaison Jeff Bladen said credit settlement topics also could be handled by his subcommittee in the future.
Additionally, MISO’s Real Time Settlements Task Team was retired after the group completed work on Tariff changes for five-minute settlements. The RTO filed with FERC to implement five-minute settlement dispatch intervals on Jan. 11.
— Amanda Durish Cook
