CARMEL, Ind. — Stakeholders last week said they foresee MISO making multiple changes to its markets to accommodate storage in response to FERC Order 841.
MISO invited stakeholders to give presentations on storage integration under the order during a May 10 Market Subcommittee meeting. The RTO will explore how to best comply with the order during a more comprehensive meeting scheduled for June 6, a joint effort of its Reliability, Market and Resource Adequacy subcommittees.
NextEra Energy’s Holly Carias, also representing the Energy Storage Association, said MISO’s participation model should not exclude any type of resource that meets the definition of storage.
“I think it’s not simply enough to fit storage into the traditional generator definition,” she said.
Instead, Carias said, storage resources should be able to self-bid instead of being subjected to must-offer obligations, in order to prevent battery life from being cut short by unpredictable injections. She also said MISO might need to update rules on physical withholding given storage’s operational nature.
But Minnesota Public Utilities Commission staff member Hwikwon Ham cautioned that allowing storage resources too much flexibility in the market could open MISO up to attempts to game the system.
The RTO’s market platform replacement comes at an opportune time then, Carias said, as it will be able to handle how storage will change energy use.
“In 10 years, battery storage is going to be so cheap that it will disrupt how we use energy,” Carias said, adding that by 2025, storage prices are estimated to fall to about $100/kWh.
MISO Executive Director of Market Operations Jeff Bladen reminded stakeholders that Order 841 simply requires RTOs to open their markets to storage participation and does not mandate any market design changes, although MISO will nevertheless debate to facilitate storage additions.
“To be clear, our view at MISO is that we want to evolve our markets. The pathway to changing our markets is not Order 841 compliance; it’s our own Market Roadmap [improvements]. … I want to make sure we don’t lose sight of that,” Bladen said.
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