Michigan Directs Retail Suppliers To File Assessment of Capacity Supply Plans For 2017-2021

The Michigan PSC has issued a customer annual order requiring retail electric suppliers and other LSEs to submit a self-assessment of their ability to meet their customers’ expected electric requirements and associated reserves during the five-year period of 2017 through 2021

Each assessment shall include the LSE’s expected peak demand and the resources available and committed to meet peak demand, including applicable regional transmission organization (RTO) requirements such as expected reserves by applying MISO’s 2017-2018 planning year reserve for each of the five years addressed by the order, the PSC said

Each assessment shall further provide details for each year regarding the actual deliverability of generation output and purchased power under peak operating conditions, and transmission capabilities and constraints or other factors such as pricing affecting deliverability and reliance on resources located in other RTOs or other resource zones within an RTO. Further, each assessment shall identify all supply side resources designated to meet reserve requirements for each year of the five year forecast – including generation units that are owned by the LSE affiliates or otherwise committed to serve the load, firm contract capacity supported by commitments of designated unit or system resources, and demand response or load curtailment measures – in sufficient detail (i.e., unit-level and contract-level information) to verify that no resource is being credited more than once toward the planning requirements of one or more load-serving entities.

To the extent that the LSE plans to rely on the MISO capacity auction, other power purchase agreement (PPA) market purchases of capacity, or other capacity purchased from the market on an as-needed basis to meet some or all of its needs, the LSE shall address potential pricing risks or transmission availability risks.

Each assessment shall also distinguish between in-state and out-of-state generation resources, and any applicable transmission service or capacity import limits, and analyze how this generation is expected to serve customer demand and meet applicable RTO requirements such as MISO Module E requirements.

Case No. U-18197