Kevin Pytel, NYISO director of product and project management, presented the ISO’s initial 2025 budget recommendations Aug. 13 to the Budget and Priorities Working Group. 

If approved, the 2025 budget for projects would be about $42.1 million. More than half of that would be spent on labor and professional services to execute projects. 

The projects selected for initial inclusion include: 

• • capacity market structure review: a look at whether changes are needed to send accurate price signals in the capacity market. 

• • engaging the demand side: a project that would let behind-the-meter solar supply energy to wholesale markets. 

• • balancing intermittency: an attempt to maintain reliability with intermittent, zero-emissions power via potential market rule changes. 

• • winter reliability capacity enhancements: a project intended to address the looming challenge of a winter peaking system to the ICAP market. 

• • winter fuel constraint study: a look at how extreme winter weather could affect the fuel available to natural gas generators and how fuel constraints could change over the next decade. 

Detailed project descriptions can be found here.  

“We’re really trying to maximize the value of the markets with this proposal and pay attention to stakeholder scores to ensure that we’re choosing projects that have stakeholder support,” Pytel said.  

“We recognize that there are a lot of high-priority projects that were scored that were not selected in the initial recommendation,” Pytel said. “If there are projects that you feel should be in the recommendations, which projects would you like to see come out to accommodate those?” 

Kevin Lang of Couch White drew attention to the operating reserves performance project that was cut. “There was one in particular that piqued our interest that isn’t about maximizing value; it’s about protecting people and making sure that we’re not giving certain market participants windfall profits that didn’t make your list,” Lang said.  

The operating reserves performance project would ensure that energy suppliers’ stated operating reserves were accurate and that suppliers were compensated to reflect actual performance. 

Pytel said all feedback would be shared with NYISO executives. He said NYISO’s CEO was available to speak with stakeholders who felt strongly about some particular project or other.  

This is the second-to-last phase of developing the budget before NYISO proposes its initial 2025 budget in September. NYISO will take feedback and return to stakeholders with revisions Aug. 27. The 2025 budget is scheduled to be finalized by Nov. 19.  

Pytel highlighted several high-priority projects that were not selected due to resource constraints. The hybrid aggregation model project, which would broaden the number of resources that could use on-site energy storage and share the same interconnection, was put on hold until 2026. 

A project to develop an operating protocol to integrate Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) also was removed from the proposed budget. CHPE is a high-voltage connection between Hydro-Quebec and NYISO that’s expected to come online in 2026. 

Several continuing projects have been delayed until 2026, including the hybrid aggregation model project, which would allow for more generation and storage facilities to exist on the same site.  

“The hybrid aggregation model, it’s disappointing to see this getting delayed a year,” said Chris Hall of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. “On top of that … it’s a little bit surprising that we’re taking continuing projects and pushing them back.” 

Pytel said projects being pushed back weren’t being canceled, but deprioritized. He pointed to a data center project at NYISO headquarters that’s being slowed down to free up some money so NYISO can finish other projects. 

Pytel said some of the projects were dropped because of newly discovered resource constraints. One project, storage as transmission, was found to be more resource-intensive than NYISO initially estimated. A stakeholder pointed out that NYISO was working to comply with FERC Order 1920, which calls for incorporating non-transmission solutions into the transmission planning process. The dropped project could be rolled into the compliance process. Pytel said he would need to discuss that more with NYISO staff.