By William Opalka

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday clarified unresolved issues from a previous order on the installed capacity market in New York that have been pending for nearly three years (EL11-42).

In it, FERC accepted NYISO’s filings in response to the June 22, 2012, order, which directed the ISO to clarify how the mitigation exemption test and offer floor calculations are implemented. The commission had found merit in a complaint by NRG Energy and several other generators that NYISO’s implementation of the buyer-side mitigation rules lacked transparency.

NYISO said the 2012 order was unclear with respect to the comparison made between the default offer floor and unit net cost of new entry in determining the offer floor. FERC said NYISO’s interpretation is correct, in that the value for unit net CONE to be used should be only the first-year value of the three-year average of annual unit net CONE.

FERC also:

• Confirmed NYISO’s method of adjusting the offer floor for inflation.
• Ordered NYISO to change how it adjusts unit net CONE for inflation.
• Affirmed its finding that NYISO has justified its use of natural gas futures prices and historical prices in its net CONE calculations.
• Ordered NYISO to incorporate language allowing the Market Monitoring Unit to consider all factors relevant to mitigation exemption and offer floor determinations in its reports reviewing whether the ISO’s mitigation and exemption determinations were conducted in accordance with its Market Administration and Control Area Services Tariff.

FERC also ruled Thursday in a case related to the ICAP, in which Astoria Generating and TC Ravenswood had alleged that NYISO’s buyer-side market mitigation provisions were improperly administered (EL11-50). The order generally denied rehearing, but it ordered the ISO to use the Astoria II plant’s actual cost of capital in its mitigation exemption determination.