By Michael Kuser

Entergy on Monday asked FERC to clarify the deadline for NYISO to complete a final market power review for the deactivation of the Indian Point nuclear plant, or grant the company’s request to rehear the commission’s approval of a previous ISO compliance filing (ER16-120, EL15-37).

At issue is FERC’s November conditional acceptance of NYISO tariff revisions to implement a new reliability-must-run program. (See FERC Approves NYISO Reliability-Must-Run Plan.) The ISO in September submitted a compliance filing to implement revisions to its RMR proposal, including adding a 365-day notice period for a generator to tell the ISO it plans to retire. The commission had accepted an earlier compliance filing for the proposal, but in April 2016 directed NYISO to make further changes to the program.

In its Dec. 18 filing with FERC, Entergy said that while NYISO’s second compliance filing contained a 90-day deadline for completing reliability studies related to plant shutdowns, it did not contain a provision for a 120-day market power review deadline included in the first compliance filing. As a result, the commission’s Nov. 16 order was “arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence and not a result of reasoned decision-making” because FERC conditionally accepted the ISO’s compliance filings without requiring it to establish a clear deadline early in the process for deactivating generators, the company argued.

Entergy contended that without a clear deadline for review, the 2,311-MW Indian Point plant lacked certainty about its authorization to exit the market in accordance with NYISO’s tariffs.

“At the very least, the NYISO should be held to its own assertions,” Entergy said. “Here, the NYISO has emphasized the need to perform any necessary market power review at the start of this process and has expressly confirmed its ability to complete this analysis in the first four months after receiving a completed generator deactivation notice … [and] a final market power review both in presentations to stakeholders and pleadings before this commission.”

The company is seeking a March 13, 2018, deadline for NYISO to complete a market power study for the closure of the Indian Point.

An ISO report earlier this month found that new gas-fired and dual-fuel generation coming online in the next few years, led by the 1,020-MW Cricket Valley plant in Zone G, will provide sufficient capacity to maintain reliability after Indian Point shuts down completely in 2021. (See New Builds to Cover Indian Point Closure, NYISO Finds.)