Power grid planning and operation with higher penetration of intermittent

MISO is responsible for running electricity markets and maintaining the reliable transmission of power in 12 States and the Canadian Province of Manitoba. It is one of the largest power grid system operators in the world, with a peak load of 104, 508 MW (July 20, 2011) in its Reliability Coordination footprint. MISO runs day-ahead and realtime co-optimized energy and ancillary service markets, as well as markets for financial transmission rights and resource adequacy. With regulatory mandates and the administration´s energy policy, MISO has seen significant increases in the number of intermittent interconnection requests, mainly from wind generation. As of fall of 2011, the wind operational capacity has exceeded 11,000MW, and is still growing. The variability of these intermittent resources introduces new operational challenges. At the same time, new proposed environmental regulations for power plants could accelerate retirement of the conventional power plants, mainly coal and oil-fired resources, thus adversely affecting grid reliability and increasing electricity costs for consumers. The combination of the high penetration of the intermittent resources and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules brought challenges to planning, reliability and market operation.