A new market registration option is among the changes SPP is likely to propose in next month's mandatory compliance filing.

We reported last week on steps that ISO New England has taken to finalize tariff revisions to meet the directives of Order No. 841, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC or Commission) final rule on electric storage participation in Independent System Operator (ISO) and Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) markets. Order No. 841 requires RTOs and ISOs to submit proposed models that permit electric storage resources to participate in organized capacity, energy, and ancillary service markets by December 3, 2018 (read a more comprehensive overview of the final rule here). At the end of October, Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (SPP) moved closer towards meeting that goal when its board approved tariff revisions developed in response to FERC's Order No. 841 directives, which should represent new opportunities for some of the 2.5 GW of pending electric storage resources in SPP's generator interconnection queue.

Like other RTOs and ISOs, SPP has been developing the framework to incorporate electric storage resources in the markets for some time. SPP states that it had been working with stakeholders and energy storage developers since FERC initiated formal proceedings to evaluate electric storage participation in organized markets in Docket No. AD16-20-000. Based on publicly-available information, one significant change SPP is likely to propose in its December 3 compliance filing is the introduction of a new market registration option for electric storage resources, the Market Storage Resource. Currently, SPP has no formalized model for storage participation. Existing storage resources must participate in markets in a limited capacity, as either a generator or a load. Under the Market Storage Resource registration option, electric storage resources will have the ability to provide Energy, Regulation-Up, Regulation-Down, Spinning Reserve, and Supplemental Reserve services, provided they are capable of providing 0.1 MW for at least one hour and meet other technical requirements specified in the tariff.

The SPP Board's meeting materials are available here.

This article is provided as a general informational service and it should not be construed as imparting legal advice on any specific matter.