If you didn’t know, the Midwest Independent System Operator or MISO is responsible for delivering cost-effective electric power to Minnesota and 14 other states in the U.S., as well as parts of Canada. MISO and its members attempt to strengthen the transmission network while bringing benefits to their consumers.
One way they do this is through adding forms of renewable energy to the power grid. Currently in Minnesota and the Midwest, wind is the most abundant clean energy resource. In addition to wind, we also utilize biomass power from trees, animal waste and plant matter, and hydropower from flowing water. Over the past several years MISO has been integrating more wind power initiatives into the power grid, and we dug a little deeper to find out what this means for Minnesota.
On November 23rd, MISO announced that they had reached 10,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power overnight, which put them past the 10 gigawatt hour (GWh) mark for production of wind energy. At that same time, it was reported that wind energy accounted for 25% of the energy being used. According to MISO, total wind capacity has grown dramatically in the last seven years due to a national desire for cleaner energy, as well as mandates for renewable energy options.
So, what does this mean for us? We know that the Midwest has some of the strongest and most consistent wind patterns in the nation. We also know that installation of infrastructure for wind farms can be fairly costly and that harnessing the wind through wind farms can sometimes be fairly inefficient. In order for consumers to benefit from wind energy, MISO is currently undergoing a solution-based process for addressing the operational challenges of harnessing the wind in their footprint. In January of 2010, MISO began working with stakeholders to design and implement a market strategy to take into account the current and projected increases of wind generation in their footprint and make the “concept of non-dispatchability less applicable.” Through the introduction of Dispatchable Intermittent Resources (DIRs), MISO will be able to allow resources such as wind to participate fully in energy markets.
As MISO plans for a future of increased wind generation, they continue to actively forecast wind resource output at five-minute and hourly intervals, while working toward enhanced methodologies and accuracies in order to benefit from our most promising renewable energy resource—wind.
