The Mid-continent Independent System Operator, also called MISO, recently released its seasonal report, revealing that this summer's electric supply may not meet demand.
“They basically come out and said over the last couple of weeks they've completed their studies, and that they just want to put everybody on notice or warn them that they're seeing that the generation resources that we have, across the footprint, could be tight to meet the electric demand during certain hours of the summer,” said Timothy Sparks during a Zoom interview on Tuesday.
Sparks is the Vice President of electric grid integration with Consumer’s Energy. He said the report from MISO — which operates the power grid for 42,000,000 people in 15 states, including Michigan — was just a warning.
The report shows for July MISO’s probable peak load forecast is around 124 gigawatts, while the available capacity is 119 gigawatts. Deficits are expected for June, July and August, which could lead to outages.
Sparks said Michigan is prepared for whatever may come.
“We're always making sure that our procedures that we have are up to date and that everybody knows what they're supposed to do in case we get into any sort of situation where the MISO is calling for us to ask those customers for instance that have signed up to reduce their load at times. They're prepared to do that. We're prepared to ask them to do that if need be,” Sparks said. “Then ultimately, if we do have to force some electric reduction, we're prepared with our systems in order to do that as well.”
Consumer’s Energy said they have not asked customers to make a reduction in ten years.
However, he added that there are things people can do at home to help over the summer, like closing the drapes to pre-cool their homes.
“On those really, really hot days, when the thermometer gets above 90, particularly 95 degrees, if they could set their thermostat up a few degrees higher that always helps. That makes your air conditioner run less,” Sparks said. “When you multiply that by the millions of customers, not only in Michigan but across the Midwest, that can make a big difference on how much electrical energy is required.”
