By Amanda Durish Cook

CARMEL, Ind. — MISO stakeholders Monday laid the foundation for the Resource Adequacy Subcommittee (RASC), hammering out a rough mission statement and management plan while determining it should report to the Advisory Committee.

The work took place during the first of a two-day work session of the Stakeholder Governance Working Group, which continues Tuesday.

Bill SeDoris, director of MISO integration for Northern Indiana Public Service Co., said he used pieces of the Supply Adequacy Working Group’s mission statement to outline the new panel’s role.

The RASC’s mission statement says the subcommittee will “provide input and policy guidance to MISO management and the Advisory Committee on all market and operational activities and processes to facilitate adequate planning resources within the MISO for the long-term planning horizon.”

The RASC will “coordinate its efforts with other MISO stakeholder groups, including all entities reporting to the Advisory Committee,” according to the draft mission statement.

Renuka Chatterjee, executive director of resource adequacy and transmission access planning, will serve as MISO liaison for the RASC.

“It’s certainly a [fresh] start,” said Michelle Bloodworth, MISO’s executive director of external affairs.

Next Stop, Steering Committee

Now it’s up to the Steering Committee to decide whether to approve the charter and management plan at its Jan. 27 meeting. If the subcommittee is sanctioned, a call for leadership and elections is planned for sometime in February with a first meeting slated for March that will review preliminary data stemming from the upcoming Planning Resource Auction.

Auction discussion will again make an appearance on the April agenda, with a special conference call planned to discuss results. The subcommittee will follow a monthly meeting schedule.

The new committee is part of stakeholder efforts to complete the RTO-wide redesign. (See MISO Stakeholders OK Redesign, Begin Implementation.)

Strategic Planning Continues

The Stakeholder Governance Working Group on Monday also continued work on setting priorities as part of MISO’s strategic planning process. The group is charged with putting together both a priority-setting process for other committees and its own list of priorities. The group picked up where discussions left off at last week’s Advisory Committee meeting.

MISO Vice President of Strategy and Business Development Wayne Schug identified five priorities on which the RTO wants to concentrate in 2016: the Clean Power Plan; improving coordination between the electric and gas systems; seams optimization and aligning border pricing; grid technology enhancement and storage; and infrastructure development. “We’ve gone from a system that’s had virtually zero wind to 15 GW of wind,” Schug said. The CPP could push wind’s contributions to 50 GW over the next few years, Schug said, and the grid has to be ready to deliver.

Gary Mathis, senior director of electric policy at Madison Gas and Electric, said he hoped stakeholders and RTO officials can align their priorities.

“It’d be hard to argue against striving for a great deal of consistency between MISO’s priorities and [priorities identified by the Advisory Committee],” Mathis said.

‘Middle Ground’

Stakeholders at the SGWG meeting favored what several called a “middle ground” approach where stakeholders can influence the RTO’s strategic priorities through recommendations for change.

Additionally, the Advisory Committee put out a request for stakeholders to brainstorm ideas on priorities and how they’re formed during a meeting on Jan. 8.

“We didn’t really talk about this in the Advisory Committee in December. There was never really any discussion on the priorities for the year,” said committee Chair Audrey Penner. She said the committee will have a bigger role in policy formation in 2016.

Dynegy Director of Regulatory Affairs Mark Volpe asked if the committee might move policy discussions and priority reviews to the mornings of its meetings, when MISO board members would be more likely to attend. Currently, board member attendance is heaviest in the mornings during “hot topic” discussions, and tapers off in the afternoons when committee priority discussions take place.

Schug told the Advisory Committee that MISO is eyeing an approach on priority setting where parent committees, such as the AC, have the power to delegate tasks based on priorities, but stakeholders would have preference when it comes to identifying issues that eventually become MISO priorities.

Redesign Discussion

Last week’s discussion also dipped into stakeholder redesign. Chris Plante of Wisconsin Public Service Corp. asked if parent entities should be the only ones allowed to identify priorities to the Advisory Committee or if task groups and working groups could also name primary issues. Tia Elliott, director of regulatory affairs at NRG Energy, said that it could be helpful if such groups take priorities to their parent entities before they’re put before the Advisory Committee.

“The value to me of this exercise is sifting through all of the various priorities and finding the most important ones,” said Kent Feliks, American Electric Power’s manager of regulatory and RTO policy.

Penner said prioritization of issues will continue to be a main theme for MISO, and the Advisory Committee is considering planning an off-site meeting around mid-February for stakeholders to weigh in on the strategic planning process.