By Michael Brooks

WASHINGTON — Grid operators assured FERC last week they are confident in their ability to maintain reliability this winter, reporting improvements in gas-electric coordination and monitoring technology.

ISO-NE is making no promises beyond this winter, however, citing concerns over generation retirements and setbacks to efforts to improve New England’s stressed natural gas infrastructure.

It was the second panel on winter preparedness that the commission has convened since the polar vortex of 2014, when frozen coal piles, poorly winterized natural gas plants and other problems idled scores of generators in PJM and the Northeast.

The panel featured the same lineup as last year, except for PJM Vice President of Operations Mike Bryson, who took the place of former COO Mike Kormos, now with Exelon.

After the RTOs’ presentations, FERC staffers also professed confidence in a presentation of their Winter 2016-17 Energy Market Assessment.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts normal winter temperatures for most of the U.S., with above-average temperatures in Alaska and the South, especially the Southwest, and below-average temperatures in North Dakota, Minnesota and northern Wisconsin. Gas storage is well above annual averages and the mild temperatures should mitigate gas constraints, staff said.

Despite the mild forecast and the unusually warm winter of 2015-16, the RTOs assured the commission that they were being proactive.

“We’re giving winter preparedness the same level of enthusiasm and hyper-awareness as we have the last year … so we’re certainly not sound asleep at the wheels at the heel of a mild winter,” said Wes Yeomans, NYISO vice president of operations. “We have a very good memory of very cold and tight conditions.”

Todd Ramey, vice president of system operations and market services for MISO, agreed. The RTO is “not taking our eye off the ball,” he said.

Unique Market Enhancements

Much of the speakers’ presentations covered ground familiar from last year, they admitted, but there have been a few new developments since then.

Both Yeomans and Bryson said their organizations had hired staff from the natural gas industry to support their control rooms in winter gas-electric coordination. Yeomans said the new hires “help us understand the gas commercial dynamics.”

Bryson said the person PJM hired “is very helpful to us, because he speaks gas, and we don’t.”

“It’s amazing because while we knew he was going to be a good hire, he has provided a lot of insight into the way the gas pipelines [and local distribution companies] think and it forces us to rethink our approach in some ways,” Bryson said.

Yeomans also said the Northeast gas pipeline system is displayed on a large video board in the NYISO control room, with pipelines under operational flow orders brightly lit, which he said enhances operators’ awareness. SPP’s Bruce Rew, vice president of operations, also highlighted his control room’s visualization technology, the Macomber Map, which depicts the transmission system geographically with power flows and constraints. (See ERCOT, SPP Collaborate to Improve Visualization Tool.) The map can also overlay weather systems with the grid, keeping operators aware of potentially hazardous conditions.

Ramey devoted much of his presentation to MISO’s new ramping product. The service holds back a portion of rampable capacity from five-minute dispatch to respond to short-term variations in load. (See MISO Seeks to Launch Ramp Product April 1.) “We found that to be a significant enhancement within our market design” and ensures “there is enough ramp on the system to meet future dispatch needs both known and unknown five to 10 minutes in the future,” he said.

California

The closure of the Aliso Canyon storage facility following a massive gas leak continues to be a concern for California, but both CAISO Executive Director of System Operations Nancy Traweek and FERC staff told commissioners that the reduced gas capacity should not threaten electric reliability in the state.

Traweek said CAISO’s increased coordination with pipeline companies and advanced planning during the summer, when the state’s demand peaks, will mitigate any risks associated with Aliso Canyon.

CAISO has asked the commission to extend for an additional year temporary Tariff changes made in response to the loss of the storage facility. (See related story, FERC OKs Natural Gas Index for CAISO.)

She also highlighted the expansion of the Energy Imbalance Market. (See related stories, Sacramento Utility to Join EIM; Other BANC Members May Follow.)

“It’s exciting to see that now others in the West are benefiting from energy markets in real time and consolidated dispatch,” Traweek said.

ISO-NE

Peter Brandien, ISO-NE vice president of system operations, said New England would be fine this winter but he was not so sure about future winters.

“We have some units that have indicated they’re going to retire — we have those units this year,” Brandien said. “So this is probably going to be my last best winter.”

When the representatives were asked by Chairman Norman Bay about their overall comfort level going into the winter, all expressed optimism except Brandien, who did not directly answer the question. Instead he talked about the importance of Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Incremental Market pipeline and the region’s dependence on LNG imports.

Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur noticed this, asking how quickly the RTO can get an LNG delivery in the event of an emergency, such as the loss of a pipeline or nuclear plant.

Brandien said that although New England has had sufficient LNG supplies in prior winters, there is no guarantee that it will receive the same amount this year. The region is supplied by three primary facilities: the Everett Marine Terminal in Everett, Mass., Canaport in New Brunswick and the Northeast Gateway off the coast of Boston. LNG ships may dock at the facilities for days without offloading their cargo if they find a better price elsewhere, Brandien said.

LaFleur also asked whether the RTO was preparing for the coming generator retirements.

“I wish I had a good answer that gave me comfort, that as the non-gas resources retire that I had some sort of magic bullet,” Brandien replied. “The region doesn’t seem to be motivated to go down the path to expand the gas infrastructure. They want to invest in different things, [such as] solar, offshore wind, onshore wind [and] energy efficiency.”

‘Cautiously Optimistic’

“The outlook for winter is cautiously optimistic, with markets well supplied for the coming season,” FERC staff told the commission. “Staff will continue to monitor developments within the electric and natural gas markets, with particular attention paid to the issues at Aliso Canyon and in the Northeast.”

Bay praised the efforts of the RTOs. “I think this is another example of the benefits to consumers living in a region served by an RTO/ISO,” he said.

When asked whether presentations by the RTOs on winter preparations would continue every year, Bay said he found them “very informative and very helpful, and it’s so helpful to hear about the different things the RTOs/ISOs are doing to help prepare for winter …”

“Significant progress has been made [since the polar vortex], but there’s always more work to be done,” he said.