By Michael Kuser

Possible Penalty for External Resources Failing in SRE

NYISO is considering penalizing external resources that fail to perform when dispatched following a supplemental resource evaluation (SRE), Rana Mukerji, senior vice president for market structures, told the Business Issues Committee on Wednesday.

The ISO presented the proposal — part of an effort to clarify the minimum deliverability requirements for external capacity from PJM — at the joint Oct. 18 meeting of the ICAP and Market Issues working groups.

It would penalize an external capacity resource selected for an SRE that fails to bid in a way that will get it scheduled, is not available and operating to provide the capacity sold for the duration of the SRE call, or is unable to deliver its energy from its control area to the New York Control Area border.

The penalty would be equal to 1.5 times the applicable spot price multiplied by the number of megawatts of shortfall and the percentage of the SRE call hours that a supplier fails to respond. It would not apply if the resource is in a forced outage during an SRE call; such an instance would instead impact its equivalent forced outage rate (EFORd).

Mukerji, who mentioned the issue during his monthly Broader Regional Market report, said the ISO will return to future working groups to continue stakeholder discussions.

He also updated the BIC on a complaint filed in July with FERC by the Independent Power Producers of New York seeking to bar the ISO from allowing PJM resources to sell installed capacity into Zone J using unforced capacity deliverability rights facilities (EL18-189).

NYISO filed an answer to IPPNY on Sept. 20, he said. The ISO argued that IPPNY mischaracterized its position and made inaccurate claims regarding alleged reliability threats.

Approves T&D Manual Updates

The BIC unanimously approved Transmission and Distribution Manual updates in conformance with FERC Order 831 on offer caps.

The changes replace “$1,000/MWh” with “$2,000/MWh” in two locations in the manual that refer to day-ahead and real-time exports not designated as a coordinated transaction scheduling interface bid, said Padam Singh, senior energy market business analyst.

Order 831 requires grid operators to cap a resource’s incremental energy offer at the higher of $1,000/MWh or its verified cost-based incremental energy offer, and cap verified cost-based incremental energy offers at $2,000/MWh. (See FERC Grants NYISO ‘Cold Snap’ Offer Cap Waiver.)

Automate ICAP Import Rights

The BIC unanimously approved changes to the Installed Capacity Manual for implementation beginning in the Summer 2019 Capability Period.

ICAP Market Operations Engineer Joe Nieminski said the manual changes include revised definitions, a request period for first come, first served (FCFS) import rights, and language regarding buyer confirmation and supporting documents.

Beginning with the summer 2019 capability period, NYISO plans to automate the FCFS import rights process to replace the fax process; replace market participants’ obligations to provide supporting bilateral contracts with an automated bilateral confirmation process; and automate steps now performed manually by ISO staff.

Day-ahead Demand Response Program Manual Updates

The BIC also approved updates to the day-ahead demand response program (DADRP) manual to comply with FERC Order 745, as presented by Sarthak Gupta, associate distributed resources operations engineer.

NYISO last updated the DADRP manual in 2003.

The changes represent an overall refresh, removing obsolete language and replacing redundant language with relevant Tariff and manual references, Gupta said.

BIC Elects Chris Wentlent Vice Chair

The BIC elected Chris Wentlent to a one-year term as committee vice chair. Formerly Exelon’s director of state governmental affairs in New York until January 2018, Wentlent now represents the Municipal Electric Utilities Association of New York State (MEUA), which represents municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives.

MEUA is a member of the Public Power and Environmental Sector.

LBMPs Down 7% in October

NYISO locational-based marginal prices averaged $35.85/MWh in October, down 7% from $38.70/MWh in September, but higher than $28.35/MWh in the same month a year ago, Mukerji said in his monthly operations report. Day-ahead and real-time, load-weighted LBMPs came in lower compared to September.

Year-to-date monthly energy prices averaged $45.03/MWh through October, a 29% increase from a year ago. October’s average sendout was 399 GWh/day in October, lower than 458 GWh/day in September 2018 and higher than 398 GWh/day in the same month last year.

Transco Z6 hub natural gas prices for the month averaged $2.91/MMBtu, up from $2.75/MMBtu in September and up 23.2% from a year ago.

Distillate prices climbed slightly compared to the previous month but were up 32.4% year-over-year. Jet Kerosene Gulf Coast and Ultra Low Sulfur No. 2 Diesel NY Harbor averaged $16.65/MMBtu and $16.66/MMBtu, respectively.

Total uplift costs and uplift per megawatt-hour came in lower than September, with the ISO’s 27-cent/MWh local reliability share in October down from 37 cents the previous month, while the statewide share dropped from -48 cents to -56 cents. Uplift, excluding the ISO’s cost of operations, was -30 cents/MWh, lower than -11 cents in September.

Thunderstorm alert costs in New York City were 75 cents/MWh, more than double the 33 cents in September.