NYISO has sequestered approximately two-thirds of its operations staff on site at its two control centers to prevent possible infection by the COVID-19 coronavirus from interfering with reliable grid operations, CEO Rich Dewey told the Management Committee on Wednesday.
“First and foremost, from a reliability standpoint, we do not feel at this juncture that we have any reliability concerns specific to the pandemic or the readiness of any market participants, whether generators or utilities, to comply with what we need to do,” Dewey said.
The regular staff are working almost 100% from home, and there have been no reports of infection, he said.
“We have moved two full operational crews on site, provided trailers for sleeping [and] separate food facilities, and have walled off access to any of the individuals participating in that program,” Dewey said. “We’ve got a rotation that will help us maintain grid operations for the foreseeable future.”
The ISO also has been in regular contact with generators and transmission owners, and some of them are also beginning to implement on-site sequestration for staff, he said.
“Similarly, we’ve also been in touch with all the other RTOs and ISOs around the country … and everyone is thinking along the same lines,” Dewey said.
“We’ve also initiated, at the request of the [New York] Public Service Commission, some outreach to the generation community to try to get an understanding — for each of the generation plants — what level of readiness or preparedness exists, and to get a sense if we’re going to have any concerns with respect to their ability to perform.”
2019/20 Winter 5th Mildest in 200 Years
Vice President of Operations Wes Yeomans delivered the Winter 2019/20 Cold Weather Operations report, which showed a seasonal peak load of 23,253 MW on Dec. 19, compared with a seasonal 50/50 forecast of 24,123 MW. NYISO’s all-time winter peak load was 25,738 MW on Jan. 7, 2014.
Yeomans said there were no “critical issues” to report to stakeholders after a season without “critical operating conditions.”
“It feels strange to give a winter report when the winter was so mild,” he said. “Just how mild was this? Relative to the top 10 mildest winters … dating all the way back to 1820, this one tied with 1906 as the fifth-warmest January in the last 200 years.”
Transmission performance was also excellent, he said.
Yeomans also delivered the monthly operations report, highlighting the mild weather in February that saw natural gas and distillate prices lower compared to the previous month, and natural gas prices down 32.2% year-over-year.
ESR Tariff Revisions Approved
The MC also approved Tariff modifications related to energy storage resource (ESR) participation, as recommended by the Business Issues Committee earlier this month. (See NYISO BIC Briefs: March 19, 2020.)
Energy Market Design Manager Zachary Stines presented the background material for the discussion and vote on proposed Tariff language, which spells out details regarding day-ahead margin assurance payments; the method for setting feasible day-ahead and real-time schedules; generator offer caps, mitigation and reference levels; and installed capacity supplier bidding requirements.
If approved by the Board of Directors in April, the ISO will file the changes with FERC and anticipates making them effective simultaneously with the rest of its ESR participation model.
CIO Doug Chapman said the ISO wants to activate the new software in June and would delay the rollout until September if unable to do so to avoid implementing new software in summer conditions, because it represents a significant change to the system.
“If the summer was mild enough, our operations teams might elect to go ahead, but our default decision would be to avoid the summer and its tight operating conditions,” Chapman said.
Committee Chair Jane Quin, vice president of energy policy and regulatory affairs for Consolidated Edison, announced that the MC will hold a special meeting April 15 to act on buyer-side mitigation rules.
— Michael Kuser