By Michael Kuser

FERC on Thursday conditionally approved NYISO’s deadlines for completing final market power reviews for deactivating generators (ER16-120-007).

NYISO submitted the proposal in response to a commission directive in April 2018 as part of the ISO’s larger plan to revise its reliability-must-run rules. (See FERC Orders Deadline on NYISO Market Power Reviews.)

The commission found the ISO’s two proposed timelines “appropriately work back from a generator’s proposed deactivation date, recognizing the flexibility generators have in proposing deactivation dates.” It also noted the ISO’s proposal “focuses on ensuring the accuracy of final physical withholding determinations at deactivation.”

FERC, however, also found that the proposal “fails to strike the appropriate balance between the needs of the deactivating generator for ‘transparency and certainty’ and NYISO’s need to ensure that the data and assumptions underlying the final physical withholding determinations are not ‘too far removed from a generator’s actual deactivation date.’”

FERC instead said the ISO’s proposed alternative in its answer to a protest by the Independent Power Producers of New York “better strikes this balance, allowing deactivating generators to timely plan their deactivations while giving NYISO adequate time to perform its physical withholding determinations and base them on ‘market conditions close to the time of deactivation.’”

As a result, NYISO must submit a further compliance filing that requires it to provide a deactivating generator final physical withholding determinations at least 60 days before the deactivation date specified in the generator’s updated notice to the ISO, which the resource owner must submit 90 days before the specified deactivation date.

Time Issues

NYISO’s Market Monitoring Unit supported the filing, saying it would leave the ISO better positioned to perform its evaluation based on market conditions that are close to the time of deactivation.

The Monitor also agreed with proposed “irrevocable action or inaction” rules, which require generators to make irrevocable deactivation-related decisions well ahead of shutdown, saying the provisions properly allow the ISO to apply reasonable judgment to consider and classify deactivation decisions as practicably irreversible even when they are not strictly irreversible.

The commission declined IPPNY’s request for clarification around those rules, saying “we believe that NYISO should have discretion to, in consultation with the Market Monitor, consider the facts and circumstances on a case-by-case basis to determine what events will have an irreversible consequence.”

FERC similarly disagreed with IPPNY’s assertion that requiring generators to deactivate no more than five days before and 10 days after their specified date is unreasonable.

The commission said NYISO’s proposal addresses its “concern that the final market power review ‘may be less effective with data and assumptions too far removed from a generator’s actual deactivation date.’ In addition, IPPNY fails to recognize that deactivating generators have the flexibility to choose their actual deactivation date when they request a final physical withholding determination.”