ISO-NE is finalizing changes to its economic study process as it works through the NEPOOL stakeholder gauntlet.
The changes are intended to improve responses to stakeholder requests for economic studies to fill gaps not covered by the ISO’s reliability studies. Such requests have evolved to more and more complex topics, such as ancillary services, resource adequacy, high-level transmission reliability and capacity markets.
Under the current process, ISO-NE puts together a rough scope for all the studies requested by stakeholders and then prioritizes them based on the region’s needs.
The new proposal would change that process by setting up an analysis framework and using it to run “consistent reference scenarios.” After that initial run, stakeholders and the ISO could request new sensitivities to test the effect of a specific change to the study’s assumptions.
ISO-NE is also proposing to change the cycle of economic studies to align with the regional system plan (RSP) cycle, moving from every year to every two years.
At the NEPOOL Transmission Committee meeting on Tuesday, ISO-NE presented some minor revisions to its proposed tariff changes, which were approved by the committee.
The grid operator is aiming to get a final vote on the study changes at the January Participants Committee meeting, with a FERC filing to follow shortly after.
DECR Tariff Changes
Also at the TC meeting, ISO-NE presented its latest work on aligning buyer-side mitigation rules to allow distributed energy capacity resources (DECR) to take part in Forward Capacity Auction 18, set for Feb. 5, 2024.
The tariff updates will reflect the minimum offer price rule (MOPR) changes accepted by FERC in May and the ISO’s compliance filing for FERC Order 2222, which has not yet been approved by the federal agency.
The tariff changes would modify buyer-side mitigation rules throughout the post-MOPR process to ensure that DERs can be included in the FCA.
They would also modify proposed DECR qualification rules in Section III.13.4A and address the qualification process cost reimbursement deposit requirement.
The tariff changes also clean up some definitions, dates and cross references related to the 2222 compliance proposal.
The ISO is working to get those changes finalized by March 2023 to be ready for FCA 18.
