Greentech Lead Canada: MISO, the regional grid operator
for 11 states and the Canadian province of Manitoba, announced its actual
wind output surpassed 10,000 megawatts in MISO.
On Friday, Nov. 23 MISO recorded the peak
output of 10,012 megawatts serving the energy needs of the MISO service
territory and representing more than 25 percent of the generation output being
used at that time.
Total wind capacity in the MISO footprint has grown
dramatically since 2006. Driven by the nation’s desire for cleaner energy and
state mandates for renewable energy portfolios, MISO now manages more than
11,000 MW of installed wind generation in service, with more than 7,000 MWs of
projects advancing through the interconnection requirements.
“Wind represents one of the fuel choices that helps
us manage congestion on the system and ultimately helps keep prices low for our
customers and the end-use consumer,” said Joe Gardner, executive
director of Real-time Operations. “When we have significant quantities of
wind being generated, we use less of other, more expensive, generation types to
keep the system in balance,” he said.
MISO manages one of the world’s largest energy markets,
with more than $23.6 billion in annual gross market energy
transactions. MISO was approved as the nation’s first regional
transmission organization in 2001.