Interconnection reform is coming to New York State—right on (a slightly revised) schedule. In response to the issuance of a rehearing and clarification order on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") Order No. 2023 ("Order No. 2023") in late March, the New York Independent System Operator, Inc. ("NYISO") announced at a Transmission Planning Advisory Subcommittee meeting on April 1, 2024 that it would push back its Order No. 2023 compliance filing and commencement of its Transitional Cluster Study Process by roughly one month (from April 3, 2024 to May 1, 2024 for the compliance filing, and from July 1, 2024 to August 1, 2024 for the Study Process).
This post is a continuation of our series covering NYISO's compliance with Order No. 2023, a set of regulatory reforms affecting transmission provider interconnection processes issued by FERC in July 2023 (see our earlier posts here, here, here, and here). This winter, NYISO held several meetings of its Interconnection Issues Task Force ("IITF") where it previewed tariff modifications it will propose to conform its interconnection processes to Order No. 2023 and to solicit feedback from stakeholders. On March 21, FERC issued Order No. 2023-A, a ruling on various requests for rehearing and clarification of Order No. 2023. Notably, in addition to clarifying transmission provider obligations with respect to Order No. 2023, Order No. 2023-A pushes back the compliance filing deadline until 30 days after Order No. 2023-A is published in the Federal Register. While we still do not know the exact due date of the compliance filings, the NYISO indicated at Monday's meeting that it will avail itself of at least part of the extension by making its compliance filing on May 1, 2024, seeking a May 2, 2024 effective date for its tariff revisions.
The NYISO also indicated that it will open the rolling pre-application process for its Transitional Cluster Study on May 2, 2024. The Transitional Cluster Study Application Window will now open on August 1, 2024, a month later than originally planned, but will still close (marking the beginning of the Transitional Cluster Study's customer engagement/infeasibility screening process) on October 16, 2024 as originally scheduled. The NYISO noted that this will shrink the Application Window by approximately a month, but that the Window will still be significantly longer than the 45-day application window that will be used for future cluster studies.
Importantly, at the April 1, 2024 meeting, the NYISO indicated that it does not anticipate making significant changes to the compliance filing draft that it has been previewing to stakeholders as a result of Order No. 2023-A, despite the fact that Order No. 2023-A allows a greater number of independent entity variations than was possible under Order No. 2023.
Although the NYISO had previously indicated that the March 15 IITF meeting would be the last opportunity to discuss the Order No. 2023 compliance filing, the NYISO has scheduled another IITF meeting for April 15, 2024 to discuss any proposal modifications it plans to make as a result of Order No. 2023-A.
Foley Hoag will continue to closely monitor the NYISO's compliance with Order No. 2023 and the subsequent impacts on its interconnection processes.
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