CARMEL, Ind. — MISO is preparing for near record electricity demand as a prolonged, major heat wave settles across the central U.S. this week. As the grid operator, MISO preemptively notified all local utilities in its operating footprint to prepare every available resource to serve the projected load.
This week, new year-to-date load peaks are projected beginning Monday, and all-time load peaks are possible Wednesday and Thursday with current projections exceeding 128 GW. MISO’s current all-time system peak of 127 GW was set on July 20, 2011.
“We anticipate challenging operating conditions throughout the entire week, and we will need every available resource at some point,” said Jessica Lucas, MISO’s executive director – system operations. “We have issued several alerts and advisories based on the weather forecast. More emergency procedures may be required to keep the power flowing. That’s typical for a weather event like this.”
MISO issued a Hot Weather Alert, Capacity Advisory and Conservative Operations ahead of the extreme heat. These advisories alert member utilities and neighboring grid operators to expect tight supply conditions and are effective until late Thursday, August 24 but may be extended and/or escalate if necessary.
MISO is working with its members and neighboring RTOs to ensure generators and transmission lines are available for use as much as possible. That requires rescheduling planned generation and transmission outages, returning transmission lines to service and recalling power generators from planned outages.
“Having a robust energy market allows us to plan for and access resources within and outside of MISO’s footprint,” said JT Smith, executive director – market operations at MISO. “The length and intensity of this heatwave over the entire MISO region will require nonstop collaboration between all of our operating partners in the electric power industry.”
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Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that delivers safe, cost-effective electric power across 15 U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba. 45 million people depend on MISO to generate and transmit the right amount of electricity every minute of every day. MISO is committed to reliable, nondiscriminatory operation of the bulk power transmission system and collaborating with all stakeholders to create cost-effective and innovative solutions for our changing industry. MISO operates one of the world’s largest energy markets with more than $40 billion in annual gross market energy transactions.