While the California ISO and NV Energy cleared one hurdle at FERC for NV Energy to join the Western energy imbalance market as planned on Nov. 1, there are still some pending issues that need to be addressed by FERC, a California ISO spokesperson told TransmissionHub Oct. 27.
Among the cases pending at FERC are the California ISO’s readiness criteria that provide a foundation for assessing whether an entity is prepared to participate in the EIM, the spokesperson said.
In an Oct. 26 filing at FERC responding to protests about the readiness criteria, the California ISO mentioned a few other cases where a FERC decision is needed to enable NV Energy to participate in the EIM on Nov. 1. Those include NV Energy’s request for authorizations to make market-based sales in the NV Energy balancing authority area and the California ISO’s request for authority to implement market power mitigation on the NV Energy interties.
The California ISO told FERC that it “will delay the NV Energy implementation date if the commission does not issue orders in these matters” before Nov. 1.
NV Energy had been scheduled to join the EIM in October, but that date was pushed to Nov. 1 due to the regulatory issues pending at FERC.
The California ISO and PacifiCorplaunched the EIM late last year, balancing supply and demand every five minutes in multiple balancing authority areas and enhancing dispatch of generation resources. Puget Sound Energy and Arizona Public Service have signed agreements with the California ISO to participate in the EIM, while Portland General Electric has said it intends to join the EIM, and Idaho Power is considering joining the market.
Among the tariff revisions accepted by FERC in the Oct. 26 order were modifications to address the use of available transfer capability for EIM transfers and to align the EIM administrative charge with the grid management charge to ensure EIM participants and California ISO market participants pay the same rate for similar real-time services.
The California ISO “has shown that its proposal will provide just and reasonable enhancements to EIM operations,” FERC said in the order.
FERC said the plan appropriately addresses the complexity of EIM transfers that result from a growing number of transmission interfaces being covered as additional participants look to join the EIM.
However, FERC conditioned its approval upon the California ISO clarifying one element on the use of ATC for EIM transfers between balancing authority areas. FERC found that the proposal was unclear on whether and how ATC will be reflected in locational marginal prices (LMP), especially the congestion component of LMPs. FERC directed the California ISO to make a compliance filing within 30 days “to clarify that the marginal price of congestion in EIM LMPs will reflect the shadow price of all binding transmission constraints including binding physical and ATC intertie constraints.”
FERC accepted the tariff revisions with an effective date of Oct. 27, subject to the condition of the California ISO making a compliance filing on the ATC issue.
