MISO Capacity Market: Forecasts, PRA Insights & Merchant Curves
Last updated: April 2026. Reviewed quarterly alongside Noreva’s merchant curve releases.
MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) operates one of the largest electricity markets in North America, spanning a footprint from the Canadian border to the Gulf Coast across 15 US states and the Canadian province of Manitoba. Its capacity market, structured around the Planning Resource Auction (PRA), has undergone significant change in recent years, shifting from a single annual construct to a four-season framework that reflects distinct reliability conditions across the year. For developers, investors, lenders, and risk teams active in MISO, capacity revenues are an increasingly important component of asset economics. Noreva provides investment-grade MISO capacity forecasts, including long-term merchant curves with seasonal coverage across MISO North andMISO South for every season, and the broader footprint.
How MISO’s Capacity Market Works
MISO’s Planning Resource Auction determines capacity clearing prices for each Local Resource Zone (LRZ) across the footprint. The PRA is held annually for the following planning year, and under the current framework, pricing is determined separately for the four seasonal capability periods: summer, fall, winter, and spring. MISO is now a seasonal capacity market rather than a single-price annual construct. Key structural features of MISO’s capacity market include:
Seasonal Capacity
As of Planning Year 2023/24, MISO moved to a four-season construct. This recognizes that reliability risks differ across the year: summer peak demand, winter gas and weather risk, and shoulder-season outage and flexibility dynamics all matter separately. Noreva’s coverage reflects all four seasonal products, including MISO summer capacity, MISO winter capacity, MISO fall capacity, and MISO spring capacity.
Local Resource Zones (LRZs)
MISO is divided into 10 LRZs, each with its own Local Clearing Requirement (LCR). Resources in import-constrained LRZs can command locational capacity premiums. LRZ 4 (Illinois/Chicago), LRZ 6 (Indiana), and several MISO South zones have historically cleared above the footprint average, with the gap widening as MISO South thermal retirements accelerate.
Accreditation Framework
MISO assigns capacity credit through an accreditation methodology. Thermal generators are credited based on performance, while wind, solar, and storage are increasingly shaped by ELCC-based accreditation, which is central to revenue modeling for variable and storage resources. MISO seasonal capacity data is tracked under the MISO seasonal capacity framework.
Capacity Import Limits
Inter-zonal transmission constraints limit the ability of lower-cost capacity from one LRZ to satisfy another zone’s reliability requirement. These constraints are particularly relevant between MISO North and MISO South and along the MISO-PJM seam.
MISO Four-Season Capacity: Overview
Season
Period
Primary Reliability Challenge
Key Resource Type
Summer
June to August
Heat-driven peak demand, AC load, data centers
Peaking capacity, demand response
Fall
September to November
Shoulder season, maintenance outage window
Flexible baseload, storage
Winter
December to February
Polar vortex risk, gas supply constraints
Winterized thermal, dual-fuel
Spring
March to May
Moderate demand, wind surplus
Flexible resources, storage
Why Did MISO Move to a Four-Season Capacity Market?
MISO’s move to a four-season construct reflects a structural reality: reliability challenges across the footprint are not limited to summer. The legacy annual PRA did not adequately capture the very different risk patterns associated with heat waves, winter cold events, shoulder-season maintenance windows, and seasonal resource performance. The four-season shift produces more accurate revenue signals and sharper incentives for seasonally firm resources.
Summer Stress: Heat, Data Centers, and Load Growth
Summer peak demand across the MISO footprint, driven by air-conditioning load and rising industrial demand, has historically defined the primary capacity adequacy challenge. MISO’s summer reserve margin has tightened as coal retirements remove dispatchable megawatts without equivalent replacement from firm resources. The broader dispatchable-capacity dynamic is examined in Dispatchable Dominance in SPP and MISO.
Winter Stress: Polar Vortex Events and Gas Dependency
Polar vortex events expose MISO’s dependence on natural gas generation, especially when gas demand for heating competes with power generation. Winter capacity has become more valuable as cold-weather reliability risk has become more visible across the Midwest. Winter is now an increasingly important pricing season, not a secondary adequacy period.
How Are Coal Retirements Shaping MISO Capacity Prices?
MISO’s fleet has undergone one of the most significant coal-retirement waves in the country. Environmental compliance costs, economics, and policy shifts have pushed substantial dispatchable capacity out of the stack. This tightening of firm supply is a major driver of higher clearing prices across MISO seasons, especially where local constraints are binding.
Renewable Entry and ELCC Dilution
MISO hosts one of the largest wind fleets in North America. As wind and solar penetration rise, the marginal ELCC contribution of new variable resources declines. That means each additional MW of wind or solar adds less adequacy value than earlier additions, which suppresses per-MW capacity revenues for new renewable entrants while increasing the relative value of dispatchable resources.
Noreva’s MISO Capacity Coverage
Near-Term Forecasts (1 to 5 Years)
Noreva provides forward-looking price forecasts for all upcoming MISO seasons: summer, fall, winter, and spring, across all 10 LRZs. These forecasts are calibrated for project finance integration and built around retirement schedules, renewable entry, ELCC updates, and market design evolution. The underlying methodology is detailed on our How It Works page.
Zonal vs. Footprint-Wide Capacity Pricing
MISO’s 10 LRZs each carry their own Local Clearing Requirement, so zonal capacity prices can diverge materially from the footprint average. Resources located inside an import-constrained LRZ effectively earn the locational premium (the firm capacity equivalent), while resources in less constrained zones earn the broader deliverable capacity price. Noreva prices all 10 LRZs separately, so that users can track forward zonal spreads.
Historical PRA Clearing Prices
Since MISO’s transition to the four-season construct in Planning Year 2025/26, seasonal clearing prices have diverged sharply by zone and season. Recent PRA outcomes illustrate the structural tightness, especially for summer and the more constrained LRZs:
MISO PRA Clearing Prices, Selected Seasons ($/MW-day)
Planning Year 2024/2025
Season
North / Central (Z1–7)
South (Z8–10)
Subregional Split?
Summer
$30.00
$30.00
Uniform
Fall
$15.00
$719.81
Split
Winter
$0.75
$0.75
Uniform
Spring
$34.10
$719.81
Split
Planning Year 2025/2026
Season
North / Central (Z1–7)
South (Z8–10)
Subregional Split?
Summer
$666.50
$666.50
Uniform
Fall
$91.60
$74.09
Split
Winter
$33.20
$33.20
Uniform
Spring
$69.88
$69.88
Uniform
Planning Year 2026/2027
Season
North / Central (Z1–7)
South (Z8–10)
Subregional Split?
Summer
$424.30
$384.10 (Z8, Z10) $412.10 (Z9)
Split
Fall
$33.92
$33.92
Uniform
Winter
$35.97
$35.97
Uniform
Spring
$7.61
$7.61
Uniform
Long-Term Merchant Curves (25 Years)
Noreva’s MISO capacity merchant curves extend 25 years and are intended for infrastructure underwriting, long-dated PPA structuring, and asset valuation. These curves reflect expected shifts in capacity demand, accreditation, as well as the MISO resource mix, including coal retirement, renewable entry, and potential new gas and storage development. The broader economics behind coal’s exit from the stack are explored in Why Keeping Coal Online Will Be So Expensive.
Four-Season Capacity Splits
Noreva provides separate price series for each of MISO’s four seasonal capability periods. This seasonal granularity is essential for accurate valuation of assets with different seasonal output or accreditation profiles, especially wind, storage, and flexible thermal resources.
ELCC-Adjusted Capacity Credits
MISO’s ELCC accreditation methodology is a critical input to revenue modeling for wind, solar, and storage. Noreva’s datasets include technology-specific ELCC rates by season, enabling more accurate capacity revenue projections. The broader valuation implications of shifting ELCC scores are examined in The ELCC Crunch: How Shifting Capacity Values Are Redefining Asset Valuation.
Why Noreva for MISO Capacity Forecasting
Noreva combines fundamentals-based modeling with trader-informed pricing inputs, a methodology no other MISO capacity data provider offers at this depth. Learn more about Noreva and the broader capacity services we offer. Our MISO coverage is built around five differentiators:
- Fundamentals + transactional insights: We pair our in-house supply, demand, and policy modeling with live broker inputs and bilateral transaction data sourced through our sister company Karbone, which has 15+ years of capacity market trading and origination experience across MISO North and South. Most data providers rely on fundamentals alone; Noreva ties MISO forecasts to where PRA outcomes, bilateral trades, and seasonal products are actually transacting.
- Low / Base / High scenarios: Every MISO forecast ships with three calibrated scenarios, enabling risk teams, lenders, and developers to stress-test assumptions on coal retirement pace, wind and solar entry, ELCC dilution, and the four-season clearing dynamics, and more without re-running the model.
- Full data stack through Noreva Data Hub and API: Daily marks, weekly forwards, four-season splits, Hub and LRZ-level pricing, and 25-year merchant curves, all accessible through the Noreva Data Hub or directly via API for integration into project finance models, DSCR engines, and portfolio risk systems.
- Advisory layer: Beyond data, Noreva supports clients with asset valuation reports, pro-forma reviews, retirement timing analysis, PPA structuring support, origination advisory, and project benchmarking, drawing on Karbone’s direct MISO market experience.
Use Cases: Who Relies on NYISO Capacity Forecasts
Renewable Developers & Wind IPPs
MISO’s wind-rich footprint hosts a significant share of US onshore wind development. Seasonal capacity revenues can be a meaningful supplement to energy revenues, and Noreva’s ELCC-adjusted seasonal forecasts help developers size merchant exposure and stress-test project assumptions.
Coal Plant Owners & Transition Planners
Coal plant retirement timing is directly influenced by capacity revenues. A plant that earns above-cost capacity payments may remain economic for reliability reasons even when its energy margins are thin. Noreva’s MISO forecasts support retirement timing and asset disposition strategy, particularly for winter-sensitive dispatchable assets.
Lenders & Infrastructure Investors
Seasonal MISO capacity revenues require more granular modeling than the legacy annual-price framework allowed. Lenders reviewing DSCR models need a defensible seasonal price deck across all four capability periods. The rigor of capacity price forecasting is central to that work, and Noreva’s four-season curves are a direct fit for it.
Risk Teams & Portfolio Managers
Portfolio stress testing under low, base, and high capacity-price scenarios requires seasonal outputs across LRZs. Noreva’s MISO datasets are structured to support direct integration into internal risk-management frameworks.
MISO Capacity Market: Key Concepts
- MISO summer capacity: Seasonal capacity for the June to August peak-demand period.
- MISO winter capacity: Seasonal capacity for the winter reliability period.
- MISO fall capacity and MISO spring capacity: Shoulder-season products under the four-season construct.
- MISO seasonal capacity: The broader framework for MISO’s seasonal capacity market.
- MISO CRS Listed: Capacity resource designation tracked across the MISO footprint.
- Resource adequacy: The reliability objective underpinning the PRA.
- ELCC: MISO’s accreditation methodology for variable and storage resources.
- Planning Reserve Margin (PRM): The reserve buffer targeted through the capacity framework.
- Capacity merchant curves: Long-dated forward price series used in valuation and underwriting.
- Generation asset valuation: The broader valuation discipline that integrates capacity forecasts with energy revenues, costs, and policy incentives.
How MISO Compares to Other US Capacity Markets
US Capacity Market Design Comparison
Market
Auction Format
Procurement Horizon
Commitment Period
Locational Granularity
Performance Obligation
CAISO
Bilateral (no centralized auction)
Annual + monthly + 3 to 5yr (MTR)
Annual + monthly
System / Local RA zones
RA showings
ISO-NE
Descending clock, transitioning to prompt/seasonal at FCA 19
~3 years forward currently; prompt from FCA 19
Annual currently; seasonal from FCA 19
System + CT, ME zones
Pay-for-Performance
MISO
Bilateral + seasonal PRA
Annual
Four seasons
10 Local Resource Zones
ELCC + accreditation
NYISO
Spot + strip + bilateral
Seasonal, Monthly, Monthly-Spot
Summer / Winter capability periods
NYC, LHV, LI, ROS localities
UCAP derating + ICAP demand curve
PJM
Sealed-bid (BRA) + bilateral
~3 years forward
Annual
RTO + LDAs
Capacity Performance
SPP
Bilateral
Annual
Summer + Winter
System + sub-zones
ELCC & PBA
For broader market commentary across all US capacity markets, see Noreva’s Market Views.
Frequently Asked Questions: MISO Capacity
What is MISO's Planning Resource Auction?
The PRA is MISO’s annual capacity auction for the following planning year. It determines the clearing price for each Local Resource Zone and each seasonal capability period, providing a forward revenue signal for generators and storage resources across the footprint.
Why did MISO move to a four-season capacity market?
The legacy single annual PRA did not capture the distinct reliability challenges of different seasons, especially winter polar vortex risk and summer peak-demand tightness. The four-season construct provides more accurate revenue signals and better incentives for seasonally firm resources.
How does ELCC accreditation affect wind capacity revenues in MISO?
Wind resources in MISO receive capacity credit based on ELCC, which measures their probabilistic contribution to peak reliability. As wind penetration grows, the marginal ELCC of new wind declines, reducing expected per-MW capacity revenues for new entrants.
Which MISO zones are most constrained for capacity?
LRZ 7 (Lower Michigan), LRZ 4 (Illinois/Chicago) and LRZ 6 (have historically been among the more import-constrained zones, and MISO South zones have also shown tightness as thermal retirements accelerate.
See the market. Price the future.
See the market. Price the future.
See the market. Price the future.
See the market. Price the future.
See the market. Price the future.
See the market. Price the future.
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Access Noreva’s MISO Capacity Forecasts
Noreva’s MISO capacity datasets cover all four seasons, all 10 LRZs, and ELCC-adjusted technology-specific capacity credits, structured for direct use in project finance, asset valuation, retirement strategy, and risk-management workflows.
To learn how Noreva’s MISO capacity forecasts can support your next underwriting case, acquisition, or portfolio decision, book a demo with our team.