NYISO is proposing to increase the required duration of special-case resources’ load curtailment from four hours to six following a survey showing stakeholder support as part of the ISO’s Engaging the Demand Side initiative.

SCRs are demand-side resources connected to a load that is capable of being interrupted at NYISO’s direction, including on-site solar. These resources may also have a local generator that is behind the meter and rated at 100 kW or higher that can be used to reduce load. They are activated when operating reserves are forecasted to be short; when there are actual operating reserve deficiencies; or in case of another emergency to balance load and generation. SCRs from aggregate resources must be within the same zone.

Currently NYISO requires SCRs to curtail load for at least four consecutive hours. Increasing the requirement to six hours would “provide the opportunity for SCRs to earn additional revenue for load reduction and enhance NYISO grid operators’ ability to balance supply and demand,” Michael Ferrari, ISO market design specialist, told the ICAP Working Group on July 15.

“Multiple Intervenors supports this particular change, and that support is really driven by the vast chasm of compensation between four- and six-hour resources with respect to NYISO’s capacity accreditation initiative,” said Mike Mager, an attorney for Multiple Intervenors, a large energy customer organization. “I will note, however, that that’s not unanimous.”

Some stakeholders asked whether NYISO would consider creating SCR categories with different durations.

“It is certainly easiest to have a single class for SCR, where it is one duration, and resources can just be dispatched by zone,” Ferrari said. “It is certainly more burdensome for two different classes of SCRs. But given the feedback on the desire for more flexibility, it’s something I think we can consider.”

“I appreciate that a one-size-fits-all approach is easiest for you,” said Kevin Lang, of law firm Couch White. “I would just note that for your suppliers, you don’t have one-size-fits-all approaches.”

“It’s not so much that it’s burdensome,” explained Zach Smith, vice president of system and resource planning for NYISO. “It’s remembering that this is a manually activated program, which is very different from every other supplier.”

Ferrari told the working group that NYISO is also considering shortening the activation notice period for the SCR down from 21 hours. The final, shorter duration would still be roughly a day-ahead notice, but the final time has not been decided.

“On a preliminary basis, the feedback we’ve gotten from our members” is they prefer “a fixed-time approach sometime comfortably prior to the close of business the day before,” Mager said. “By 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., they would know whether the call was happening or not.”

One stakeholder reminded NYISO that certain engineers and professionals that manage building and industrial infrastructure would not be available after 3 p.m. because their days start much earlier than the traditional “start of business.”

NYISO is also proposing changing the method for determining SCRs’ baseline load values from average coincident load (ACL) to customer baseline load (CBL). Ferrari said that CBL would allow the ISO and market participants to more accurately look at the energy available to reduce load. Some stakeholders noted that this would be more difficult to calculate and potentially be confusing for operators.

“I would note that all of the changes being proposed have the effect of seemingly making performance more difficult or challenging for participants,” Mager said.

Others noted that the CBL was already being used in the installed reserve margin study to estimate the amount of relief from using an SCR.

NYISO plans to deploy these revisions to the SCR program in the 2026/27 capability year with possible phased implementation. Several stakeholders expressed disappointment that the six-hour duration could not be deployed sooner.

“We certainly understand the request and the desire and the disappointment that this cannot be made sooner,” Smith said. He explained that to implement the change for 2025/26, a software update would be needed by February. “We did not ask to have software development as part of the work for this year, and the two months that we have to deploy this is insufficient for even just” a change of two hours.

Smith said that NYISO would continue to evaluate whether that could be accelerated.