What Did April Bring?: FERC Extends Out-of-Market Reliability Measures but Wants Market-Based Solutions
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) recently published two orders that approved capacity and reliability measures for the Independent System Operator New England Inc. (“ISO-NE”) and the New York Independent System Operator (“NYISO”). In contrast to its approval of NYISO’s measures as promoting transparent pricing and appropriate market signals for reserves, FERC approved ISO-NE’s out-of-market winter measures but urged that they be modified further to more closely resemble the market and market-based results. These contrasting orders reflect continued challenges in the Northeast to meet capacity and reliability needs and FERC’s emphasis on increased pricing transparency to spur the investment required to meet these needs.
