Under the scenarios considered in NYISO’s consumer impact analysis for the Winter Reliability Capacity Enhancements project, installed capacity procurement costs would drop by 15 to 45% depending on locality.
“Overall, the market design proposal is likely to improve market efficiency,” Nicole Bouchez, senior principal economist and consumer interest liaison for NYISO, said at the Installed Capacity Working Group meeting Oct. 14. “Seasonal minimum ICAP requirements more accurately represent future system needs.”
The study assumed the proposed market design changes for the winter reliability project were implemented. Those changes included: seasonal unforced capacity deliverability rights/external capacity deliverability rights with a must-offer component; distinct winter/summer minimum ICAP requirements; and removal of the seasonal adjustments in the seasonal ICAP demand curve.
Scenario 1 assumed the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) was not in service and that the Gowanus and Narrows generators were not retired. Scenario 2 assumed CHPE was active only in the summer and Gowanus and Narrows were retired.
In Scenario 1, ICAP market procurements fell statewide by 15%, with some variation among the different zones. In Scenario 2, procurements overall fell by 45% but increased locally on Long Island from $32.48 million to $36.15 million during the study year.
Sensitivities were conducted to look at expected imports and exports. Maximizing net imports to their historical heights decreased procurement costs. Maximizing net exports increased procurement costs but still provided overall savings to consumers.
Bouchez said the seasonal market design likely would improve market transparency and provide better price signals for both market exit and entrance. No environmental impacts were identified, but the new market design may increase the potential profitability of new technologies (like batteries) entering the market.
The ICAP Working Group also discussed the tariff and manual revisions for the winter reliability project. The target implementation for the tariff changes is May 2027, with a filing at FERC in the first quarter of 2026.
Doreen Saia, chair of Greenberg Traurig’s energy and natural resources practice, expressed concern that NYISO is lumping substantive tariff and manual edits with administrative ones.
“The NYISO cannot keep bunching together what appear to be ministerial ‘nothing to see here’ changes and then lop on something that does matter and is important and package it together,” she said. “Market participants are running to keep up with you.”
Another stakeholder agreed, saying stakeholders want to talk through the issues before the manual or tariff language is put in front of a committee.
These comments were in response to NYISO’s inclusion of revised manual rules that apply to generators that are placed into an ineligible forced outage. The ISO highlighted several sections of the manual that it thought needed clarification and presented revisions.
Mike Cadwalader of Atlantic Economics also pointed out that the manual revisions did not come with a sample case to illustrate how the rules functioned.
