Committees Approve Updates to ROFR Implementation
The NYISO Business Issues Committee and Operating Committee approved without objection governing document revisions that would implement transmission owners’ right of first refusal in the ISO’s planning processes at their meetings June 16 and 20, respectively.
FERC in 2021 ruled that New York TOs have a federal ROFR over transmission upgrades to their facilities and in 2022 approved tariff revisions implementing a ROFR for those that are part of another developer’s public policy transmission project under Order 1000. (See FERC Approves ROFR for NY Transmission Upgrades.)
But those revisions did not include projects selected by NYISO’s own reliability and economic planning processes that include ROFR-eligible upgrades. The approved proposal would revise tariff attachments P, Y and FF to implement that.
The proposal now goes to the Management Committee for its June 30 meeting. If approved by the MC and the Board of Directors, NYISO anticipates filing with FERC in July.
Other BIC Action
The BIC also passed a pair of motions unanimously.
The committee recommended that the MC approve tariff revisions to support NYISO’s Joint Operating Agreement with PJM in anticipation of the activation of the Dover phased angle regulator. The Dover PAR station is part of the AC Transmission Segment B public policy transmission project, which is intended to reduce transmission congestion between the Albany area and New York City. (See NYISO Board Selects 2 AC Public Policy Tx Projects.)
Stakeholders also passed a motion to recommend approving changes to the tariff to implement the Market Purchase Hub Transactions project. The market design would allow trading hub energy owners (THEOs) to purchase and sell power on the NYISO day-ahead market to settle imbalances.
System Impact Studies
The OC also unanimously passed a pair of system impact study reports for two interconnection studies.
One of these, the POWI Project, would draw 50 MW continuously to the Port of Coeymans to support the port’s upgrades to service the offshore wind industry. (See Siemens Gamesa Plans OSW Nacelle Factory in Upstate NY.) The SIS found there would be no adverse impacts on the local grid. The good-faith cost estimate for the necessary upgrades was found to be $76.48 million.
The other study was for Beowulf Energy’s Cayuga Compute project, a large data center expansion at the site of a retired coal plant. The project will boost the data center’s load from 50 MW to 138 MW.
The data center supports artificial intelligence computation. The SIS found that the project could cause thermal and voltage violations but they could be mitigated with operating procedures and several upgrades to the local grid. Combined, the local upgrades would cost about $15 million.
