It could be another month before stakeholders and the public in New England find out the results of ISO-NE’s capacity auction from last week as the grid operator wrestles with the ongoing fallout of an 11th-hour court ruling over a Connecticut power plant.
In a filing to FERC on Tuesday, ISO-NE said that the Feb. 4 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing the Killingly Energy Center to temporarily maintain its place in Forward Capacity Auction 16, which took place on Monday, could mean it is unable to announce the results of the auction until mid-March or later.
As of right now, there are two sets of auction results hanging in limbo, as ISO-NE calculated clearing prices and quantities both with and without Killingly participating.
That means the grid operator will also have to delay its preparations for next year’s capacity auction, FCA 17, which were supposed to begin this week. For example, ISO-NE is required to provide market participants that have existing capacity resources with their qualified capacity values for those resources on Thursday.
“The definitive calculation of those qualified capacity values cannot be made for all resources without final FCA 16 results,” ISO-NE said in the filing.
The grid operator considered moving forward with planning for next year’s auction using both sets of results but decided that approach would not be compatible with its systems and processes and would pose “extraordinary risk to all the downstream activities.”
ISO-NE is asking FERC for permission to delay establishing that and other dates as part of the FCA 17 timeline until the Killingly situation is clarified.
FERC still has an important role to play in ending the uncertainty. The agency has a rehearing request in front of it, filed by Killingly developer NTE Energy, which is appealing the agency’s decision to affirm an ISO-NE decision to terminate the capacity supply obligation for the project. (See Killingly Stays Alive After DC Circuit Halts FERC’s Termination Order.)
While FERC issued a notice denying rehearing “by operation of law” on Feb. 11, that was not sufficient to “resolve” the request, ISO-NE said.
The uncertainty could also mean that next year’s capacity auction is pushed back to March instead of February.
“Based on the analysis that the ISO has conducted to date, the ISO envisions that the qualification activities for FCA 17 will begin in April 2022, and FCA 17 will occur in March 2023,” the filing said.