By Amanda Durish Cook DETROIT — Four industry executives and a state regulator shared their views on distributed generation, resource adequacy and aging infrastructure during a stakeholder panel at the MISO Annual Meeting last week. Robert Gee, of Gee Strategies Group, moderated. Melody Birmingham-Byrd of Duke Energy Indiana called distributed...

Below is a summary of the issues scheduled to be brought to a vote at the Markets and Reliability and Members committees Thursday. Each item is listed by agenda number, description and projected time of discussion, followed by a summary of the issue and links to prior coverage in RTO Insider.

By Amanda Durish Cook DETROIT — MISO and its Independent Market Monitor have reconciled their differences and reached a compromise on a redesign of the capacity auction, CEO John Bear told stakeholders at the RTO’s Annual Meeting last week. Bear made his remarks at Wednesday’s Advisory Committee meeting, which was...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Two former Ohio regulators debated FirstEnergy’s and American Electric Power’s controversial power purchase agreements in the opening session of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners Annual Education Conference last week. Steven Lesser, who served on the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio from...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — As of last year, 17 states had smart meter penetration of 50% or more. Yet only seven states — Maryland, Delaware, Arizona, Oklahoma, Ohio, Arkansas and Louisiana — have more than 5% of their residential customers enrolled in time-varying rate plans, according to...

By Robert Mullin Pacific Gas and Electric said Tuesday it will shut down California’s last nuclear power plant in 2025 under an agreement reached with a coalition of environmental, labor and anti-nuclear groups. The utility said it will develop a portfolio of renewable resources, energy efficiency and energy storage to...

By Ted Caddell and Suzanne Herel Groups opposing FirstEnergy's plan to win subsidies from Ohio regulators asked FERC last week to again intervene in the dispute (EL16-34, et al.). The Electric Power Supply Association, Dynegy, NRG Energy and others filed a joint protest, asking FERC to block the company’s revised...

By Robert Mullin Concerned that large numbers of gas-fired generators will retire early because of competition from lower-cost renewables, CAISO last week proposed a study to identify the most vulnerable units in its balancing area. The initiative to gauge the risk of “economically driven” retirements is a result of California’s...

By William Opalka FERC accepted the results of ISO-NE’s 10th Forward Capacity Auction last week, again rejecting allegations of market manipulation and concluding that the prices were just and reasonable (ER16-1041). Brayton Point Wikipedia The auction, covering the 2019/20 commitment period, saw prices drop to $7.03/kW-month from last year’s $9.55/kW-month.

By Michael Brooks WASHINGTON — New wind generators will be required to provide reactive power following a FERC order last week eliminating their exemption from having to provide the service (RM16-1). Inverters, necessary for wind turbines to provide reactive power, have become much less expensive since FERC exempted the resource...