By Michael Kuser

FERC on Friday accepted ISO-NE’s updated cost of new entry (CONE) and offer review trigger price (ORTP), effective March 15, 2017 (ER17-795).

The RTO, which is required to recalculate the values every three years, will apply the revisions in Forward Capacity Auction 12 in February 2018 for the June 2021–May 2022 capacity commitment period, as well as in FCAs 13 and 14.

In its Oct. 6 order, the commission agreed with ISO-NE on every point and refuted every protest filed by the New England Power Generators Association (NEPGA). The RTO changed the reference resource on which it bases the CONE and net CONE values from the combined cycle gas turbine chosen in 2014 to a simple cycle generator, citing it as the most economically efficient, with a net CONE value of $8.04/kW-month. The grid operator cited the combined cycle turbine as the next most efficient resource type, with a net CONE of $10/kW-month.

NEPGA argued that zonal clearing prices in FCAs 7-9 were at or above $14.99/kW-month, which indicated that the actual CONE is higher than ISO-NE’s proposed value. The commission disagreed, saying “NEPGA has not persuaded us that the proposed net CONE value will result in a starting price that will limit investment and competition in the FCA.”

Regarding NEPGA’s comment that ISO-NE’s consultant on the Tariff revisions, Concentric Energy Advisors, listed a production tax credit value as 15 cents/kWh, rather than 1.5 cents/kWh, the commission noted that “this appears to be a typographical error that is not carried forward into Concentric’s calculation of the actual ORTP value.”

The commission also approved ORTP values of $7.856/kW-month for combined cycles, $6.503/kW-month for combustion turbines, $11.025/kW-month for onshore wind, $0/kW-month for energy efficiency, $1.008/kW-month for large demand response and $7.559/kW-month for mass-market DR. Offers below the technology-specific thresholds are subject to review by the RTO’s Market Monitor for buyer-side market mitigation.