By Michael Kuser

FERC last week partially accepted NYISO’s plan to comply with a mandate that RTOs and ISOs develop rules to provide energy storage resources (ESRs) full access to their wholesale markets.

Order 841, issued last year, requires that grid operators recognize the unique physical and operational characteristics of ESRs in designing market participation rules.

NYISO proposed a model that allows ESRs to either blend into a higher aggregation with other storage resources and demand response, or to come together as one, virtual, larger resource. (See Overheard at GTM’s Energy Storage Summit 2019.)

The commission on Thursday found that “NYISO has demonstrated that all [ESRs], including those located on the distribution system or behind the meter, will be eligible to provide all capacity, energy and ancillary services that they are technically capable of providing” (ER19-467).

However, the order also faulted NYISO’s filing for a lack of details on its “metering methodology and accounting practices for [ESRs] located behind a customer meter,” directing the ISO to alter its Tariff to include a basic description of such.

FERC noted its earlier determination that defers further action on the Order 841 compliance directive to allow participation in wholesale and retail markets until the commission takes action on the merits of NYISO’s November responses about ESR energy bids in the day-ahead markets, and its definition of “an obligation outside the ISO-administered markets” (ER19-2276).

The commission did, however, agree with the Energy Storage Association that it is not reasonable to allow NYISO to adopt an open-ended effective date of no earlier than May 1, 2020, saying the proposal “inappropriately creates uncertainty for existing and prospective market participants,” and ordered an effective date of no later than that date.

Separate Concurrence

In a separate concurrence, Commissioner Bernard McNamee reiterated a point he’s made in other storage-related orders, saying FERC “should have, at the very least, provided states the opportunity to opt-out of the participation model created by the storage orders.”

McNamee, not a member of the commission at the time Order 841 was issued, said he concurred in part and dissented in part with Order 841-A, which — among other things — affirmed that states cannot prevent ESRs from participating in wholesale markets.

“To the extent the commission’s storage orders exercised authority over the distribution system and behind-the-meter … the majority has exceeded the commission’s jurisdictional authority by depriving the states of the ability to determine whether distribution-level ESRs may use distribution facilities so as to access the wholesale markets,” he said.