Vote Set on Rate Schedule 1
BOLTON LANDING, N.Y. — NYISO stakeholders will vote July 26 on whether a new study should be conducted to evaluate the cost allocation between transmission withdrawals and injections.
ISO officials previewed the vote on the Rate Schedule 1 cost-of-service study Tuesday at a joint Board of Directors and Management Committee meeting.
Rate Schedule 1 governs the charges made to market participants using NYISO’s open access transmission system and helps ensure that all participants are charged fairly for their services.
RS1 allocations were last changed in 2011 and are currently set at 72% for withdrawals and 28% for injections. Roughly 67% of the MC at the time supported the allocations, which were scheduled to be effective for a minimum of five years, with a Management Committee vote required in the third quarter of this year.
Recent attempts to adjust RS1 allocations were voted down by stakeholders. (See “Cost of Service Study,” NYISO Management Committee Briefs: July 28, 2021.)
But the ISO told stakeholders Tuesday: “In recent years, discussions with market participants have indicated that a study is necessary in the future due to evolving market changes.”
The most recent RS1 allocation study, performed by Black and Veatch in 2011, cost about $215,000 and took six months to complete. The study included analysis of ISO data, staff interviews, and comparison of practices of other grid operators.
The ISO has steadily increased the allocation for injections since 1999, when withdrawals were allocated 100% of costs.
Should the MC vote to conduct a new study, NYISO anticipates new RS1 allocations would be effective by 2025.
Solicitation for MMU Evaluations
NYISO has opened its annual solicitation of stakeholder feedback on its market monitoring unit, Potomac Economics.
NYISO is asking for comments on the MMU’s performance, suggestions on how the MMU’s duties should change or improve, and opinions whether the ISO should search for a new MMU.
The ISO has worked with Potomac for more than a decade, and some attendees had questions about this ongoing relationship.
One attendee expressed concerns about the ISO’s reliance on Potomac’s proprietary software, asking if there could be issues should either the ISO decide to work with another MMU or the data gets compromised.
Shaun Johnson, director of market mitigation and analysis at NYISO, responded that Potomac has made significant upgrades to their cybersecurity and information technology systems and has an off-site datacenter that backs up their data to give them redundancy capabilities. Should the ISO hire another MMU, any transition would include considerations about how Potomac’s NYISO data would be shared and used, he said.
The same attendee asked whether NYISO’s relationship with the MMU has changed over the years, saying there is a perception that the ISO does not listen to Potomac’s recommendations as much as before.
“We have meetings and conversations with the MMU every day,” Johnson said. “So what you see at stakeholder meetings are maybe just the end results or beginning of those conversations.
“Just like within NYISO and within the stakeholder community, sometimes we agree with each other, sometimes we disagree with each other, but it’s really about collaborating to come up with the best results,” Johnson said.
NYISO requested that comments be sent to either sjohn@nyiso.com or deckels@nyiso.com by July 31. Submitted feedback will be confidential.
FERC Update
FERC staff updated the MC about what the agency has been doing for the past year and what plans NYISO should be aware of.
FERC energy industry analyst Emily Chen said FERC is reviewing NYISO’s third Order 2222 compliance filing to determine whether more revisions are needed (ER21-2460). (See “FERC Compliance Filings,” NYISO Business Issues Committee Briefs: May 24, 2023.)
Leanne Khammal, deputy director of FERC’s Division of Electric Power – East, said the agency continues to work on improving interconnection queue backlogs via Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (RM22-14), develop more effective winter emergency and reliability plans with Northeastern RTOs, and host technical conferences that seek to improve transmission planning processes, such as the upcoming PJM Capacity Market Forum.
Staff also told the MC that FERC is searching for a new NYISO liaison, since the position’s previous holder recently retired. Staff said they are looking at ways to improve the role via stakeholder feedback.
