FERC on March 19 approved NYISO’s proposed tariff revisions aimed at harmonizing its generator interconnection and transmission planning processes (ER24-951). 

The changes are intended to improve coordination between NYISO’s Class Year study in its Large Facility Interconnection Procedures with the facilities study for transmission projects under its Transmission Interconnection Procedures. Additionally, the revisions amend the base case inclusion rules in the ISO’s Small Generator Interconnection Procedures to ensure more precise accounting of identified interactions. 

NYISO argued the changes will prevent transmission projects from being studied in isolation from projects in the interconnection queue or undergoing overlapping evaluations, thereby improving the efficiency of each process. 

The ISO’s proposal included revising security posting requirements for transmission projects. Developers will be required to post security for upgrades before, rather than after, executing a transmission interconnection agreement. This change is expected to reduce the need for restudies of network upgrade facilities, which should make it easier for projects to be included in the existing system representation for the next Class Year study, the ISO argued. 

“We find that [the revisions] would accomplish the purposes of Order No. 2023 by improving the efficiency of NYISO’s interconnection request process and the accuracy of the models used in NYISO’s interconnection studies,” the commission said. “This will contribute to increasing the overall efficiency of the interconnection process, which will help ensure that interconnection customers are able to interconnect to the transmission system in a reliable, efficient, transparent and timely manner.” 

The proposal had been in development since 2022, before Order 2023 was issued, as one of the ways NYISO sought to unclog its interconnection queue. After Operating Committee approval in December of that year, several events led the ISO to delay bringing it before the Management Committee, including Order 2023 itself, as it wanted to ensure the proposal did not conflict with the order. The MC unanimously endorsed the proposal in October. (See “Interconnection & Transmission,” NYISO Management Committee OKs $195M Budget, 5.6% Rate Increase.) 

NYISO submitted an interim, “partial” compliance filing for Order 2023 in November. The deadline for its full compliance filing is April 3. The order, issued in July, directed grid operators to change their interconnection procedures from first-come, first-served to first-ready, first-served.