By Robert Mullin

CAISO staff expect to submit a proposed black start procurement proposal to the Board of Governors in May, officials said Tuesday.

The ISO launched an accelerated procurement effort in January after identifying the need for additional black start resources in the transmission-constrained San Francisco Bay Area. (See CAISO Kicks Off Effort to Procure Black Start Resources.)

“I’m not expecting [that] we’re going to have significant Tariff changes for purposes of this initiative,” Andrew Ulmer, CAISO director of federal regulatory affairs, said during a March 21 call to discuss a draft final proposal that deviated little from the approach laid out in the initial proposal. (See CAISO Proposes TO-focused Black Start Procurement.)

Ulmer added that the ISO hoped to make draft Tariff language changes available to stakeholders ahead of the board vote.

The black start initiative represents the second phase of a 2013 undertaking to address NERC reliability standard EOP-005-2, which required transmission operators to draw up plans for system restoration in the event of widespread blackouts.

The ISO’s plan envisions the significant involvement of an affected transmission owner in selecting a black start resource, both in drawing up technical specifications and vetting proposals from those resources that bid into the solicitation.

Based on stakeholder feedback, CAISO settled on a cost-of-service approach to compensating the resource, rather than providing a capacity-type payment sufficient to support the operation of an otherwise unprofitable generator.

The payment would allow for recovery of capital and fixed operations and maintenance costs plus a “reasonable margin” for the resource owner, according to Scott Vaughan, lead grid assets manager at the ISO.

The proposal calls a resource to be contracted under a three-party agreement between the ISO, the local TO and the resource’s owner.

Paul Nelson, electricity market design manager at Southern California Edison, sought more details about the nature of the agreement — specifically the extent of the TO’s responsibility.

Ulmer explained that CAISO expects that any black start resource procured under the process would not only become part of the ISO’s system restoration plan but that of the TO as well.

“It makes sense to us to have a three-party agreement with ISO, the black start resource and the participating transmission owner … ensuring we have evidence that we secured the capability for the [NERC] reliability standards.”

“So … there’s three roles — the ISO, the black start resource and the transmission — and all three in conjunction need to provide certain services and responsibilities, and the contract will lay out what those are and who’s responsible for the roles and responsibilities and the costs,” Nelson offered.

“Yes, that’s correct,” responded Ulmer, adding that in April, CAISO intends to release a sample contract for stakeholder review.

CAISO also plans next month to publish draft technical specifications for black start resources, followed by a stakeholder meeting on the subject during the second half of May. During the first half of June, the ISO expects to issue a request for proposals for resources in the San Francisco area.

Stakeholders should submit comments on the black start draft final proposal to the ISO by April 4.