By Jason Fordney
FERC last week approved NYISO’s tariff revisions to implement a new reliability-must-run program but directed the ISO to make another filing with certain revisions to the initiative (ER16-120, EL15-37).
NYISO submitted a compliance filing Sept. 20 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. FERC had accepted an earlier compliance filing but in April 2016 directed NYISO to make further changes.
The commission rejected a request by the Independent Power Producers of New York and Electric Power Supply Association to shorten the RMR notice period to 270 days. The groups contended that a full year was unnecessarily long. They also made other requests regarding deactivation time and suggested certain incentive payments as part of the program.
In last week’s order, FERC directed NYISO to make another filing that clarifies that a generator can propose solutions to a reliability need that are not market-based and can involve generators that are already mothballed or in a forced outage.
The ISO will also require generators to repay revenues that exceed going-forward costs for RMR service and allow units receiving an availability and performance rate (APR) to retain other incentives. FERC’s order also asked NYISO to clarify what reliability solutions it will use as its base case to determine reliability needs.
NYISO will also have to “revise the requirement to repay above-market revenues to require repayment of only the above-market revenues that exceed an RMR generator’s going-forward costs for RMR service, and to allow RMR generators that accepted an APR to retain their availability and performance incentives.”
The ISO must also revise the repayment periods for capital expenditures and above-market revenues to require repayment either within 36 months or twice the duration of the applicable RMR agreement, whichever is shorter.
NYISO must make an additional compliance filing with further revisions by Dec. 16.