ISO-NE’s plans for new capital projects this year include infrastructure upgrades for the Next Generation Markets (NEM) platform, enhancements to its weather forecasts and a switch away from the nearly obsolete Internet Explorer browser.

The grid operator laid out changes in its plan for 2022 in a budget report filed with FERC on Thursday.

It spent $27.5 million on capital projects in 2021, $500,000 under budget in part because of FERC’s rejection of the Energy Security Improvements plan and a deferred cybersecurity improvement project.

Its biggest new capital expense for 2022, about $4.5 million, is Phase II of a project designed to prepare the RTO’s hardware and software for the new market clearing engine that General Electric is developing as part of the NEM project. The RTO is also purchasing a cloud-based cybersecurity package for protecting enterprise applications and resources.

Also added to the budget for this year is enhancements to ISO-NE’s weather forecasting. The project will expand its forecasts from eight to 23 cities in New England and add new weather concepts to try to improve its load forecasts, the document says.

Some of the other new budget items include improvements to the RTO’s Solar Do-Not-Exceed dispatch processes; a new physical security system to replace obsolete cameras at control centers; and a move to cut down the number of internet browsers ISO-NE uses from four to two, timed to coincide with Microsoft cutting off support for Internet Explorer this June.

In other changes to the 2022, budget ISO-NE will save $1.5 million because of its decision to delay elimination of the minimum offer price rule and $400,000 because of a delayed project to migrate its public website from internal servers to the cloud.