NYISO has presented the final locational minimum installed capacity requirements for the 2026/27 capability year. The LCRs, expressed as a percentage of peak load forecast, represent the minimum capacity that generators and load-serving entities must maintain within the downstate zones. These zones have substantial transmission constraints.
Based on the 24.5% installed reserve margin set by the New York State Reliability Council, NYISO determined the minimum LCR for New York City, Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley to be 86.4%, 110.3% and 82.5% respectively, assuming the Champlain Hudson Power Express is online. If CHPE is not online, NYC would have an LCR of 82.6%. The other zones’ LCRs remained unchanged.
2026/27 Informational Capacity Accreditation Factors
At the Jan. 6 Installed Capacity Working Group meeting, NYISO also presented capacity accreditation factors for the upcoming capability year for stakeholder informational purposes. These are not the final CAFs that will determine the market revenue of suppliers for the capability year. Final CAFs are due March 1.
Unlike in previous years, NYISO included two sets of informational CAFs, one calculated with CHPE in and one without. The largest shift in informational CAFs occurs in the “non-firm” resource class. These are fossil fuel resources without contractual commitments from fuel suppliers. If CHPE is included in non-firm, generators are rated at 55.32% and 58.99% in the New York City suburbs and New York City respectively. If CHPE does not come in, these values climb to 84.67% and 85.77% respectively. The full table of results can be found here.
NYISO said CHPE’s impact on non-firm generator informational CAFs was driven by increased loss of load expectation events between the CHPE-in and CHPE-out scenarios. CHPE is modeled as a summer-only resource, so when CHPE is “in” it increases winter risk by being assumed to be unavailable. Non-firm generators have opted not to declare that they have secured fuel for the winter capability period, which means they are worth less in situations where winter risk is elevated.
