Joe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023

šŸ§µ More on X-mas Eve.

ISO-NE released a Newswire ā€œUpdateā€ on X-mas Eveā€™s capacity deficiency last weekā€”essentially a 2nd, more thorough explanation of what transpired. bit.ly/3Da0e19

The ISO released the Update, it said, ā€œto help correct any confusion, ā€¦

https://bit.ly/3Da0e19

Update on Christmas Eve capacity deficiency - ISO Newswire

This update helps correct any confusion, misinformation, and misunderstanding resulting from various news stories and social media posts.

ISO Newswire
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023
ā€¦misinformation, and misunderstanding resulting from various news stories and social media posts.ā€ Let me say, I hope my posts werenā€™t the source of any confusion, misinformation, or misunderstanding, so Iā€™m happy to amplify ISO-NEā€™s clarifying Newswire.
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023
Perhaps the most important point of clarification has to do with Mystic Generating Station. I speculated early onā€”and I was clear that I was speculatingā€”that MGS had gone offline. I was correct about MGS being MIA, but I learned from @DMoKreis that, in fact, ISO-NE hadnā€™tā€¦
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023
ā€¦dispatched MGS. The obvious question was, why was MGS, which has received an out-of-market cost of service agreement worth hundreds of millions of dollars to shore up reliability, not called into action on a day when reliability was in jeopardy? The Update provides ISO-NEā€™s...
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023

ā€¦ explanation.

The cost of service agreement was put in place so that MGS remains available to ā€œsupport the regionā€™s energy security needs during periods when fuel supplies are tight.ā€ Energy supplies were not tight heading into X-mas Eve so MGS wasnā€™t dispatched. When theā€¦

Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023
ā€¦capacity deficiency began to unfold b/c various units began dropping offline it was too late to dispatch MGS to meet the evening peakā€”it would have taken too long to spin it up. Agree or disagree w/ISO-NEā€™s decision not to dispatch MGS as a precaution heading into the heightā€¦
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023

ā€¦of Winter Storm Elliottā€”thatā€™s the ISOā€™s explanation.

What the ISO doesnā€™t revisit/ further discuss in the Update is its policy not to disclose the identity of the generating units that dropped offlineā€¦

Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023

ā€¦or reduced their output. Theyā€™ll be fined $39 million, and those fines will be used to pay the generators that were called upon to make up for the shortfall, but will the fines alone make the likelihood of future failures to perform less likely?

Extreme weather events likeā€¦

Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡
ā€¦Winter Storm Elliott reveal the weak links in any system. This is true not only for the electric gridā€”ask Southwest Airlines about its system for dispatching its own flight crews. Or to get back to grids, think about what Winter Storm Uri did to @ERCOT_ISO, and why.
Jan 17, 2023 at 1:16pmWeb
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023
The point is this: most generators operated w/o interruption, as expected; others did not. Presumably @FERC & @NERC_Official will examine the root cause of each generator failure as they complete their investigation into the outages caused by Winter Storm Elliott across theā€¦
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023
ā€¦nationā€™s grids. It is one thing to understand the cause of the outages, yet another to make certain that theyā€™re addressed so that they donā€™t cause similar outages in the future. That is the lesson of Winter Storm Uri and ERCOT. Letā€™s not forget that ERCOT experiencedā€¦
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023

ā€¦outages in 2011 that foreshadowed Uriā€™s outages a decade later. The causes were similar: generation and grid equipment that had not been hardened for extreme cold weather. No steps were taken after 2011 to harden the system, setting the stage for Uri.

https://bit.ly/2TxU0nA

Texas Eschewed Reforms, Leading to ā€˜Dangerous Situationā€™

Leaders in both the private and public sector knew something like this could happen. They have called for investigations over weather-related energy failures and quickly arranged hearings at the Capitol before.

GovTech
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023
New Englandā€™s grid is hardened against cold weather. That cold weather durability differentiates New Englandā€™s grid from ERCOTā€™s. Nevertheless, the lesson of failing to act to address known weak points in the systemā€”and the generating resources here in New England that failedā€¦
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023
ā€¦X-mas Eve are such known weak pointsā€”shouldnā€™t be forgotten. How can the public be assured those vulnerabilities have been addressed if ISO-NE wonā€™t identify the plants that failed? ISO-NEā€™s position is that disclosure would distort offers into its markets. That may beā€¦
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 17, 2023

ā€¦true during periods when offers into the markets are still being settled. But does it remain true weeks after those settlements have been closed?

This brings us to ISO-NEā€™s Information PolicyšŸ‘‡šŸ»ā€¦the topic for some future thread. ###

bit.ly/3XhigGF

Show threadharshalJan 17, 2023
@jglarusso thanks for the great info and thread @jglarusso; weather forecasting is good now, really surprised MSG was not dispatched
Show threadnathanpbostonJan 26, 2023
@jglarusso I am bringing this specific question of yours to #ISONewEngland in my role on the Consumer Liaison Group.
Show threadJoe LaRusso šŸ”ŒšŸ•³šŸ‡Jan 30, 2023
@nathanpboston Thanks, Nathan. Can I impose on you and ask that you pose another? Itā€™s possible to telephone into / log into ISO-NEā€™s Planning Advisory Committee meetings. Given the public-facing nature of the CLG (ā€œFacilitating Consumer Involvementā€), why canā€™t ISO-NE use the same tech/staff to allow remote access to 1/4ly CLG meetings?
Show threadnathanpbostonJan 31, 2023

@jglarusso yes, absolutely. The CLG is meant to enable the flow of information/communication between ratepayers and ISO, and this would promote just that.

A good precedent was the last meeting, which did have on-line access and on-line voting. It could have been more widely publicized, and I hope we can build on that step in the right direction, to provide convenient access to all ratepayers.

I will bring this to the coordinating council. Thank you.