The NEPOOL Reliability Committee (RC) voted to support changes in ISO-NE Planning Procedure 7 (PP7) to comply with FERC Order 881. That order is intended to improve transmission line ratings by requiring ambient adjusted ratings for near-term transmission service requests and seasonal ratings for longer-term transmission requests. (See FERC Orders End to Static Transmission Line Ratings and FERC Denies Rehearing, Clarifies Order 881 on Line Ratings.)

PP7 details ISO-NE’s procedures for determining and implementing transmission line ratings.

“The proposed PP7 revisions focus primarily on increasing the number of seasonal ratings from 2 to 12 and providing general guiding principles and requirements in calculating ratings for transmission lines, while allowing each Market Participant to establish their own rating methodology,” wrote Michael Drzewianowski, principal engineer of transmission planning for ISO-NE, in a memo before the meeting.

He added that the proposal “is designed to advance the order’s objective to account for the natural cooling and heating effects of weather when determining available transmission capacity and to promote and enhance sharing of rating methodologies and ratings data.”

New England Clean Energy Connect

The RC voted to support two operating agreements related to the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) transmission project:

• • A transmission operating agreement between ISO-NE and NECEC Transmission giving ISO-NE authority for operational control over the NECEC line
  • An interconnection operating agreement between ISO-NE and Hydro-Québec enabling “the coordinated operation of the Québec-to-New England interconnection”

Data and Information Publication

ISO-NE also outlined a series of updates to its reporting of operational data and information on capacity scarcity conditions, responding to a series of stakeholder requests.

The RTO implemented several changes in late 2024, including “enhanced notifications of real-time contract curtailments” and a new Next Day Operational Capacity Report.

ISO-NE also is working to create a new “public prospective monthly report” containing total capacity supply obligation data and intends to expand its capacity reporting to include hourly data on capacity surplus. It’s considering informational enhancements related to aggregate storage capabilities and real-time tracking of reserves and outages.

Generator Availability Data Collection

The RC also supported a proposal for a new planning procedure to govern data collection for the RTO’s Generating Availability Data System.

“This procedure will describe the data submission timelines, reporting requirements and validation processes for the required data,” said Steven Judd, manager of resource adequacy and accreditation for ISO-NE. He noted that ISO-NE relies on the data to calculate each resource’s outage rate and the region’s installed capacity requirement.

He clarified methodology used to calculate when wind and solar generators must report events, which differs from the methodology used for conventional generators and is “based on the difference of the plant’s [Network Resource] Capability and their Real Time High Operating Limit.”

Operating Procedures

Jaren Lutenegger, director of operational performance, training and integration at ISO-NE, detailed some minor proposed updates to ISO-NE Operating Procedure (OP) 14, which contains technical requirements for generators.

ISO-NE proposes to clarify its language regarding do-not-exceed dispatch limits for solar and wind generators, and to add fuel types to enable reporting to meet U.S. Energy Information Administration requirements.

Mike Knowland, manager of operations forecast and scheduling for ISO-NE, presented proposed changes to OP-21, which governs operational surveys, energy forecasting and energy emergency actions. The proposal is intended to “streamline the surveys and associated processes,” and includes updated survey questions and clarifying language regarding energy alerts and emergencies.

The RC voted to support both proposals, along with clarifying changes to an OP-23 appendix concerning audits of reactive resources.