ORLANDO, Fla. — MISO leadership predicted adequate supply paired with a temperate winter at the final Board Week of the year.
“Under normal conditions, we should be flush this year. If everything goes as planned, you won’t hear much from me come March,” Executive Director of Market Operations J.T. Smith told the Markets Committee of the MISO Board of Directors Dec. 5. “We have El Niño out there, keeping the Pacific Ocean waters warm. While we’re expecting this winter is going to be mild, we’re preparing for a significant drop in temperatures. … Winter Storms Uri and Elliott are great examples of how cold can blast into the footprint.”
MISO has said its winter demand could top 106 GW, with about 121 GW of supply available under normal grid and generation outage conditions. However, the RTO hasn’t ruled out the possibility of an emergency sometime in January. (See MISO: Possibility of Winter Emergency in January.) MISO’s record winter power demand, 109 GW, occurred Jan. 6, 2017.
Smith said it isn’t surprising NERC’s 2023-24 Winter Reliability Assessment highlighted fuel supply issues throughout the footprint and MISO South’s risk of high outages from inadequate weatherization if a deep freeze strikes southern states. Smith said MISO South generators rarely experience sub-zero temperatures, so they don’t prepare as if they’re an everyday occurrence.
“There is a risk that cold extends into the South, and that could be an issue,” he acknowledged.
Smith also said MISO members have access to healthy stores of natural gas and coal stockpiles heading into winter.
MISO’s 2023/24 generator winterization survey showed that 97% of MISO units responding to the survey have undergone winter preparations, 97% have recently reviewed NERC’s winter readiness guidelines and 96% have a severe cold weather checklist. The response rate of the survey was 92% of MISO generators. MISO said the reported level of preparedness generally is better than last year’s. The RTO uses its winter preparedness survey to inform its real-time market operations.
MISO also is preparing draft emergency trading rules for neighbors Louisville Gas & Electric/Kentucky Utilities and East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Smith said.
MISO’s Independent Market Monitor recommended MISO draw up emergency supply agreements with its non-RTO neighbors after MISO flowed a few gigawatts of power exports to utilities in the Southeast during winter storms last Christmas.
Monitor David Patton said he concurred with MISO’s take on the upcoming winter. However, he said an extreme winter event could drive forced generation outages to 29 GW and have MISO nearly draining its reserves. He qualified that MISO’s wind fleet usually performs well during winter weather events, so MISO experiencing a near-zero margin is unlikely, even if utilities’ gas scheduling becomes a problem.
“We should be OK this winter,” Patton concluded, though he added, “Thinking through fuel security is going to become a lot more important in the future.”
Smith also said MISO thankfully experienced a “wholly unremarkable” fall, with normal load, coal and fuel prices remaining inexpensive at about $2/MMBtu and no hurricane activity affecting the southern footprint.
MISO’s fall peak arrived early in the season on Sept. 5 when late summer heat drove 115 GW in load.
