MISO met NERC’s frequency response requirement for 2015, although performance was not as good as a year earlier, adviser Terry Bilke told an April 13 Reliability Subcommittee meeting.
The RTO’s estimated annual frequency response was -475 MW/0.1 Hz in 2015, complying with its obligation of -211 MW/0.1 Hz under NERC’s frequency response standard (BAL-003-1).
Still, results from local balancing authorities were not as good as in 2014. “I was kind of hoping we’d see incremental improvement year-over-year,” Bilke said, adding that the decline was small enough to be attributed to sampling error.
“We’re still okay,” RSC chair Tony Jankowski said. “But there’s nothing that says we’re going to be OK except for past performance. And obviously, that’s [no] guarantee.”
Data for the first quarter of this year showed that more than 400 generators provided no frequency response in the first quarter, while about 100 plants were determined to be harming MISO performance. Fewer than 200 generators rated an “OK” response, with a small number classified with “theoretical perfect performance.”
“Interestingly, one of the best performers was a wind farm,” Bilke said.
That assessment comes as MISO stakeholders are being asked to respond to FERC’s Feb. 18 Notice of Inquiry, which seeks comment on whether RTO pro forma interconnection agreements should be changed to require all new generation be capable of providing frequency response (RM16-6).
Jankowski said the language in the notice indicates that FERC does not recognize all the factors at play.
“From the market’s perspective, I don’t think we have any indication that a generator is a frequency response generator or not, or a good performing generator or not,” he said. “So to have any sort of expectation that we don’t have enough [frequency response] because the market clears wrong, I don’t buy that. There isn’t a constraint for frequency response.”
MISO thinks frequency response should be compulsory for new generation and voluntary for all existing generation, Bilke said. He added that if reliability declines in light of a changing resource mix, FERC should revisit the issue.
Comments on FERC’s notice are due April 25. Jankowski urged the RSC to be “proactive” in making suggestions on frequency response incentives and penalties through local balancing authorities.
“Nothing precludes us from doing this today,” he said.
March Incident Breaks 3-Month Perfect Score on Commitment Performance
Last month’s sole “unacceptable” rating for real-time unit commitment performance — occurring March 22 — was attributed to an operator’s mistake.
“We had a unit that was left on in an operator error,” Steve Swan, MISO senior manager of dispatch and balance, said during a monthly operations update. “They misread the runtime. It’s been addressed.”
March otherwise contained all “excellent” daily performance ratings, receiving an overall score of 2.9 — just shy of “perfect,” but breaking a trend of perfect 3 rankings in peak hour unit commitment since December.
The month had no minimum or maximum generation alerts or warnings nor any tie-line errors lasting longer than 15 minutes.
Swan also reported that -45,308 MW was added to MISO’s inadvertent interchange balance in January, bringing the running total of imbalances since 2009 to -749,641 MW.
By the end of this month, MISO expects to complete two bilateral inadvertent interchange paybacks, where two balancing authorities swap under-generation for over-generation. Swan said MISO is also performing “internal data mining” to investigate why the footprintwide balance continues to be negative.
Seams Quarterly Report Released
MISO has released its latest quarterly report on seams issues.
“We historically haven’t gotten a lot of review on [the report],” said Ron Arness, Seams Management Working Group liaison. He noted that, although feedback is light, stakeholders continue to request the report every year.
— Amanda Durish Cook
The commission voluntarily agreed to reconsider the issue after 
The agency issued a formal notice amending the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, saying that the costs of regulating emissions such as mercury, nickel and arsenic are reasonable and far outweighed by the public health benefits. EPA had issued a similar finding, but while the rules were being written. The Supreme Court ruled that the cost analysis should have been done before.
FERC Chairman Norman Bay appointed veteran jurist Lawrence Brenner as senior administrative law judge.
EPA, the Department of the Interior and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation want the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take a closer look at the Dakota Access pipeline plan.
FERC has approved Williams Partners’ Transco Garden State Expansion Project, a series of compression improvements to an existing line aimed at boosting delivery in central New Jersey.
The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to apply for an early site permit for building small modular nuclear reactors on its Clinch River site, but federal design approval is expected to take a decade.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection staff accused Tennessee Gas Pipeline of filing misleading information to FERC in a bid to get permission to begin logging a pipeline right of way in a state forest.
The U.S. Forest Service has granted developers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline permission to survey new routes through the Monongahela and George Washington national forests. The agency previously rejected the planned route for the $5 billion, 500-mile project.
An East Tennessee resident who worked as a senior manager in the Tennessee Valley Authority’s nuclear program is one of six Americans workers in the nuclear industry accused of selling information to China’s top nuclear power companies.
The Court of Federal Claims has ordered the federal government to pay $76.8 million in damages to three New England nuclear plant operators for failing to create a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel.
Constellation is providing engineering, procurement, construction and operation services. Bloom Energy is providing the fuel cells. The city will buy the electrical output at or below current market rates through a 15-year power purchase agreement.
Environmentalists, union leaders, solar company executives and several lawmakers condemned a proposal by lawmakers to divert $22 million in clean energy funding to help close a state budget gap.
MidAmerican Energy says it will spend $3.6 billion to build a 2,000-MW wind farm in the state. Gov. Terry Branstad called it the largest economic development project in the state’s history.
A bill aimed at boosting the state’s solar industry passed the House 81-69 but faces a likely veto from Gov. Paul LePage. Opponents say the measure would saddle customers with higher electricity prices to pay for solar subsidies.
A public forum concerning the relicensing of the Palisades nuclear plant is scheduled for April 21 in Kalamazoo.
State environmental officials will continue to study the potential effects of the proposed 20-million-ton-per-year Otter Creek coal mine near the Wyoming border, even though its sponsor, bankrupt producer Arch Coal, suspended the project.
The state Legislature passed a bill boosting wind energy development by a 34-10 vote, which proponents said will reduce regulatory obstacles for wind developers and make the state competitive with neighbors that produce more wind power.
The North Country Chamber of Commerce has halted its opposition to the Northern Pass transmission project, which would import Canadian hydroelectric power. The chamber switched its position to neutral, citing a divided membership.
Local elected officials and customers of New Jersey Natural Gas held a media event in front of a pizza joint to denounce the company’s proposed 24% rate increase, which came after its executive compensation in 2015 increased about 40% from the previous year.
About 50 climate change activists protested outside the state’s Public Regulation Commission offices last week at the start of three weeks of hearings over Public Service Company of New Mexico’s $123.5 million rate case. The protesters are calling for the utility to reduce its reliance on coal generation.
The Corporation Commission voted 3-0 against an Oklahoma Gas & Electric plan to change the way it calculates the bills for rooftop solar users and directed the utility to fully explore the issue in its pending rate case.
A Lebanon County judge has ruled that Sunoco Logistics may bury a natural gas liquids pipeline across the properties of three landowners who refused to sign easement agreements.
Hettinger County officials have approved a permit for a second phase of the 72-turbine Brady Wind Energy Center project. The Planning and Zoning Board and the County Commission voted unanimously to approve the conditional-use permit, but it must still receive Public Service Commission approval.
Members of several Native American tribes joined long-running attempts by environmentalists and local activists to shut down the Eagle Pass coal mine near the Mexican border, which they say threatens ancestral burial grounds. The tribes say transporting the high-sulfur coal, which is shipped to Mexico, would release hazardous particles into the air, and that the discharge from the operations would run off into a creek that ends in the Rio Grande.
The state’s process for deciding where solar and wind energy projects can be located were the subject of contentious hearings before two House of Representatives committees.
SPower says construction has begun on the controversial 46-turbine Pioneer Wind Park, the first new wind farm in the state since 2010. The 80-MW project could provide as many as 179 temporary construction jobs.
