The most prolific worry about large load facilities like data centers is how to power them, but the New York Power Authority raised a new concern at the NYISO Budget & Priorities Working Group’s meeting June 24. 

When working with a large load customer’s interconnection, NYPA noticed an issue in the ISO tariff that would arise if such a customer ceases operation, creating a “substantial” financial risk to other load-serving entities, the utility’s Tony Abate said. 

Because NYISO’s minimum unforced capacity is constant, “any remaining capacity obligation (i.e., the departing customer’s ICAP tag) is spread over all remaining load in the transmission district for the remainder of the capability year,” he said. 

Typically, loads that disconnect mid-CY are negligible; but data centers disconnecting would cause a problem, Abate argued. Other LSEs in the district may not have a mechanism to protect themselves from the financial risk associated with the reallocation of UCAP should a major customer leave, he said. 

NYISO and NYPA had argued about tariff interpretations until the ISO asked it to come forward with a market project, Abate said. 

“We see this as being similar in kind of intent with the … large load interconnection project, which NYISO has prioritized,” Abate said. 

The project would entail NYISO investigating the rules that assign or reallocate the UCAP requirement such that if a large load departs a transmission district, the remaining customers are treated equally.  

Generation developer JERA Americas also submitted a project proposal to increase transparency in market operations. Specifically, it wants more data regarding system topology, branch characteristics and branch flows. It also wants transmission line ratings and the causes of transmission line outages to be published.