The NYISO Operating Committee has approved the ISO’s locational capacity requirements (LCRs) despite multiple stakeholders abstaining from the vote in protest of the process.
“On behalf of Multiple Intervenors and the city [of New York], we just want to express that we are deeply concerned with the process NYISO went through,” said Kevin Lang, a lawyer from Couch White who represents large industrial customers and NYC. “The NYISO can’t surprise, and should not be surprising, market participants with last-minute changes in its methodology.”
In addition to the Multiple Intervenors group and NYC, PSEG Long Island and Energy Spectrum abstained from the Jan. 15 vote. All other members voted in favor of the LCRs.
Lang was referring to a presentation given to the New York State Reliability Council’s Executive Committee (NYSRC EC), in which changes to the 2026/27 installed reserve margin (IRM) study were discussed and voted on. According to the published LCR Study, the IRM report implemented changes to include modeling of the Champlain Hudson Power Express and winter fuel constraints. These changes included modeling of voluntary curtailments and distributed area resources. Transmission security floor values, which are used in the calculation of the LCRs, also were updated.
“The NYSRC EC is concerned with the timing and lack of notice in the NYISO TSL [transmission security limit] methodology and the apparent reversal of previous TSL positions without stakeholder or NYSRC input,” NYSRC EC chair Mark Domino was recorded saying in the meeting minutes. Domino said the NYSRC would reactivate the Reliability Resource Evaluation Working Group to consider a new reliability rule to address this issue.
The final LCRs were first presented Jan. 6 at an Installed Capacity Working Group (ICAP) meeting. (See NYISO Presents Final LCRs for 2026/27.) At that meeting, little discussion of the final LCRs occurred.
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.
“We are going to work with the Reliability Council to address the minimum timing issue,” said Yvonne Huang, senior manager of ICAP market operations. “We will try to improve the process going forward.”
Huang asked NYISO to “never do that again” and requested clarification as to why the ISO waited until the last minute to introduce methodology changes to stakeholders. She said the ISO made the changes because of the reliability need that was discovered in 2025. (See NYISO Again Identifies Reliability Need for NYC.)
“I agree we should work better to improve and bring the changes early,” said Huang, who added that the changes were first brought up in a Nov. 20 Electric System Planning Working Group meeting. “We were working as fast as we could.”
Jason Ragona, representing Con Edison, issued a statement saying that while the company would vote to support the LCR motion, it wanted on the record that it shared Lang’s concerns about rapid changes to TSL and LCR calculations. Ragona encouraged the NYSRC to adopt procedural changes to “minimize” future occurrences.
The representative from PSEG Long Island issued a similar statement to Ragona’s, calling for more time to perform complete reviews and comments about any changes.
Other Business
The OC also heard the Operations Report for the New York Control Area for December 2025. The peak load for the month was 23,448 MW on Dec. 15 around 5 p.m. That set the winter load record for the year. Wind generation peaked at 2,338 MW on Dec. 18 at 10 p.m. Solar peaked at 2,767 MW on Dec. 22 at 11 a.m. No major emergencies occurred, but seven alert states were issued during the month.
The committee also heard and approved revisions to the System Restoration Manual and approved a system impact study scope for a data center development on the former site of the Remington Arms Factory in Ilion. The Associated Press reported on the factory’s closure in 2024.
