Emergency Operating Procedures

ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State Reliability Council Executive Committee on Friday approved the preliminary base case for the upcoming capability year and new emergency operating procedures aimed at enhancing grid reliability.

The base case was approved after it received approval from both the NYSRC’s Installed Capacity Subcommittee, other committee members and NYISO, with the ISO’s COO, Rick Gonzales, saying during the meeting, “This is a step in the right direction, and the ISO supports this change,” in reference to the proposed revisions.

The base case is particularly crucial for resource adequacy modeling, as it sets the foundation for assessing the reliability of the power system by establishing assumptions concerning load forecasts, generator availability, transmission constraints and other factors that influence the modeling.

Previously, the ICS reported how conditions are tightening in the New York Control Area and that conservatively adjusting the ISO’s emergency operating modeling and its base case is necessary as the state relies on neighboring systems, particularly in the winter, to support reliability during emergencies. (See “Emergency Operating Procedures,” NY State Reliability Council Executive Committee Briefs: June 9, 2023.)

The ICS and NYISO staff will continue to conduct sensitivity analyses using these new assumptions to better understand the impact they will have on the state’s installed reserve margins and then report back to the committee.

Stakeholders were asked to share input before anything is finalized at the ICS meeting on Oct. 4.

Inverter-based Resources Standard

The committee discussed NERC’s new risk priorities list in light of a recent inverter-based resource (IBR) event in Utah that caused grid instability.

NERC for the first time updated its risk priorities list to include energy policy as a risk profile after it determined that policymakers’ decisions are becoming increasingly crucial to ensure the reliability of the grid. (See ERO Adds Energy Policy to Risk Priorities List.) New York has been working to finalize rule requirements and comply with NERC standards for IBRs.

Last month a solar disturbance in southwest Utah raised further questions about the reliability of IBRs and prompted NERC to reiterate the importance that generators and developers follow its Level 2 alert, which set out IBR guidelines. (See NERC Utah Event Report Underlines Ongoing IBR Issues.)

Mayer Sasson, former chair of the Executive Committee, commented that when reading NERC’s report on the incident, he felt like its authors were “angry and upset,” as utilities and the wider industry were “not taking [NERC’s] event analysis and recommendations seriously.”

Roger Clayton, chair of the NYSRC’s Reliability Rules Subcommittee, who has been leading the charge of implementing IBRs, said that the incident “is more evidence that we need to get this right,” adding that the state “must learn the lessons from these incidents and avoid such incidents from happening in New York.”

NYISO Updates & Eclipse Prep

NYISO informed the EC that it has made notable progress on several market development projects, such as its dynamic reserves, duct firing model improvements and four-year demand curve reset, as well as begun preparing for an upcoming solar eclipse.

Aaron Markham, NYISO vice president of operations, also told the committee that August was a “pretty benign month” and experienced a peak load of 24,970 MW.

NYISO has begun preparing for an anticipated partial solar eclipse in October, which is expected to reduce solar energy by roughly 700 MW, though the ISO believes it will have enough resources available to meet load at the time.

The ISO is also looking ahead to a total solar eclipse expected in April 2024 that will pass through the state.