NYISO on Friday presented the Installed Capacity/Market Issues Working Group (ICAP/MIWG) with draft revisions to its distributed energy resource participation model that included feedback, though stakeholders continued to express concern over what they said is a lack of clarity.

NYISO has identified several concepts within the FERC-approved model that it says require revisions to both clarify and better align them with ongoing software updates, including how utilities share data with the ISO, removing previous unused models and adjusting certain calculations. Harris Eisenhardt, NYISO market design specialist, told stakeholders that in response to stakeholder feedback, the ISO attempted to clarify the types of changes to an existing DER or group of DERs that would result in a supplemental review.

Stakeholders were still confused, however, about how aggregation makeups would be adjusted over time and how those changes would impact utilities’ construction costs and information-sharing. Mike Cadwalader, president at Atlantic Economics, summarized the concerns by saying that NYISO has made “an improvement but is not there yet.”

Aaron Breidenbaugh, director of regulatory affairs at CPower Energy Management, said NYISO needs to be specific about the types of DER changes that qualify for review, as utilities “may not realize that by making a change, they’re triggering a whole review process.”

Matt Cinadr, a power systems operations specialist with The E Cubed Co., and Mark Younger, president of Hudson Energy Economics, both expressed concern about how invertor-based resources would be treated in the new model. Cinadr said, “These things need to be widely understood as we move forward with inverter-based resources” because the unknowns around them “will cause a lot of people a lot of headaches.”

Stakeholders were also concerned about the lack of details or timeline of the transition to the new model. Greg Campbell, senior attorney with NYISO, sought to alleviate by saying that the ISO “plans on including in its filing what the transition process will be” and that “timing and transition information will be included.”

NYISO will seek approval of the revisions at the Feb. 15 Business Issues Committee meeting and the Feb. 22 Management Committee meeting. It then anticipates starting the DER transition process in the third quarter of 2023.

Julia Popova, NRG Energy’s manager of regulatory affairs, said it would be important for NYISO to include any “hardwired deadlines” in their filing, as this would give stakeholders a better sense of how the transition will progress.

Peter Fuller, an energy consultant who works with NRG, summarized the mood of the room, saying, “It’s January, and DER is supposed to go live later this year,” so NYISO “needs to figure out how they’re going to do this.”

Final LCR Results

Final 2023-2024 LCR Results | NYISO

 

NYISO also presented the ICAP/MIWG with results for their updated locational minimum installed capacity requirements (LCRs). They showed that Zone K’s (Long Island, excluding Brooklyn and Queens) LCR increased by 0.1% to a total of 105.2%, raising the total New York Control Area’s Installed Reserve Margin (IRM) by 0.1% to 20%.

The ISO will present the final LCR results at the Jan. 23 Operating Committee meeting and seek stakeholder approval.