By William Opalka
New York envisions a future when distribute energy resources can participate in wholesale energy and capacity markets as seamlessly as any conventional generator.
To help get there, NYISO on Thursday released the final version of its DER Roadmap, which seeks to create flexible pathways for distributed energy to participate in markets as the industry moves away from a model based on central power stations. A fall workshop laid out a broad outline of how these resources could optimize the grid. (See NYISO DER Workshop Ponders the Grid of the Future.)
The document released last week provides more specific guidance and includes timelines and interim steps that could lead to implementing dispatchable DER rules in 2021.
“The NYISO’s market enhancements will permit dispatchable DER with various capabilities to participate in the wholesale markets. Integrating DER in this manner will require enhancements to wholesale market design, system planning and grid operations to better align resource investments and performance with system needs and conditions,” the report states.
DER can consist of demand management, power generation, energy storage or different combinations of all three aggregated into a single entity.
“The NYISO’s vison for dispatchable DER also aligns well with Reforming the Energy Vision in that it offers the potential to engage or animate certain consumers in ways that optimize grid utilization while helping these consumers better manage their own energy needs and costs,” Mike DeSocio, senior manager of market design, said at a media briefing Thursday.
Other goals of the roadmap include the integration of DER into the energy, ancillary and capacity markets. “More fully integrating dispatchable DER will provide a means for DER to take advantage of real-time scheduling,” the report said. “It is important for the NYISO’s real-time systems to access and dispatch these resources in response to price signals reflective of grid conditions and needs.”
Improved load forecasts are seen as essential, as supply of distributed resources must be balanced with demand.
The roadmap also seeks ways to align compensation with system performance. The ISO said it intends to develop compensation aligning the flexibility and measured performance of DER with system needs, treating DER comparably with other resources.
Many of the DERs will be connected to the distribution network, unlike traditional generators, which are connected to the bulk transmission grid. The report said to ensure bulk power system reliability, an accurate representation of DER impacts at their interface to the grid is essential.
NYISO said the Roadmap is a starting point for discussions with stakeholders to develop market rules and operational protocols. It is also working with utilities to develop a series of demonstration projects that will require coordination or integration of DERs into the bulk power system.