Central Hudson, Con Edison, National Grid and the Natural Resources Defense Council have co-submitted a proposal to the NYISO project prioritization process asking that the ISO consider developing a capacity market based around retaining existing resources.  

The project proposal says the market is intended to operate within a framework where generator entry to the New York market is driven by state government procurements. Various stakeholders have contended in prior working group meetings that the capacity market as currently designed ignores this and as a result no longer functions to incentivize new entry. (See NYISO Stakeholders Debate Purpose of Capacity Market.) 

“Given the dominant role of the state, we think it would be prudent to consider the merits of, and efficiencies that we might gain, by focusing the capacity market on the cost of retention today,” said Ekene Umeike, speaking on behalf of Con Edison. 

During his presentation, Umeike said the project would replace the elements of the capacity market structure review that are considering a bifurcated market. Such a market could implement price discrimination between new and old capacity.  

“The proposal recognizes that the implementation of a retention-only capacity market would require the development of separate mechanisms for market entry,” Umeike said. “While other capacity market programs have been proposed, in our view, none of them appear likely to address the fundamental concern of customers facing higher costs without a commensurate improvement in reliability.” 

Several stakeholders asked for clarification on the project and how it fits into the current project prioritization process. One stakeholder asked that Con Edison and the other co-sponsors of the proposal come to the ICAP working group to discuss elements of the project and its description before asking stakeholders to vote on it.  

Project Prioritization Continues

NYISO has included 48 “market projects” in the project prioritization process. Of those, 25 focus on changes to the energy market, 10 to the capacity market and seven to new resources. The remainder focus on planning and transmission congestion contracts markets.  

NYISO staff added several new projects to the pool of potential candidates for focus in 2026, including designing a market mechanism for bifurcated capacity markets and the net congestion rent assignment study proposed by the MMU. (See MMU, FTI Argue for Maintaining Uniform Pricing in NYISO Capacity Market and NYISO Monitor Proposes Changing Congestion Rent Assignments.) 

A list of project descriptions can be found here. Project costs and descriptions still are in draft form and will be finalized by June 30. After that, NYISO will distribute surveys to stakeholders for project scoring. These surveys are due July 15 and survey results will be discussed July 30.