By Michael Kuser
FERC on Thursday approved NYISO’s proposal to allow aggregations of distributed energy resources to participate in its markets.
The commission said the proposed model enhances competition “while also providing DERs with appropriate flexibility to meet various needs both within and outside the NYISO-administered wholesale markets” (ER19-2276).
“Among other considerations, NYISO’s filing facilitates the participation of DERs and other aggregations of resources in its wholesale markets by enabling heterogenous groups of technologies to aggregate and be compensated for services that they are collectively capable of providing,” FERC said.
A group of stakeholders — Advanced Energy Management Alliance, Advanced Energy Economy, Consumer Power Advocates, Energy Spectrum, Natural Resources Defense Council and the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium — jointly contested the Tariff revisions regarding dual participation, metering and telemetry, installed capacity market requirements, and buyer-side mitigation.
But the commission disagreed with their concern that NYISO’s requirement that market participants must “bid in a manner that ensures they will be dispatched by the ISO for the market intervals consistent with the manner in which the resource operates to meet such obligation(s)” creates a barrier to entry.
“We find that this proposed requirement appropriately balances any additional burden placed on market participants in determining their bids against the need for NYISO’s system operators and dispatch software to account accurately for the operation of dual participating facilities,” the commission said.
It also noted that the ISO did not propose any substantive changes to its market power mitigation provisions and, therefore, it found protests of the group, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the state Public Service Commission to be beyond the scope of the proceeding. The protesters had contended that application of NYISO’s existing buyer-side market power mitigation rules to DER aggregations could result in over-mitigation of the resources.
FERC also on Thursday dismissed NRG Curtailment Solutions’ complaint over NYISO’s metering requirements, saying it had been rendered moot by its approval of the ISO’s DER aggregation model (EL18-188). The commission had granted NRG’s complaint in part in 2018 and establishing a paper hearing to determine an appropriate remedy.