ISO-NE issues 2024 Annual Work Plan

ISO New England has issued its 2024 Annual Work Plan, outlining anchor projects and other notable initiatives for the coming year that are designed to ensure power system reliability while supporting state goals for the integration of clean energy and distributed energy resources across the regional bulk power system.

Initiatives planned and already underway to advance a reliable clean energy transition target innovation, bolster efficiency, and help manage risks across the ISO’s markets, planning, operations, and software structures.

Anchor projects supporting the evolution of the region’s wholesale electricity markets include the development of new methodologies to quantify resources’ capacity contributions to regional resource adequacy (continuing work from 2023), and the assessment of alternative Forward Capacity Market (FCM) commitment horizons. An operations anchor project will focus on the determination of a Regional Energy Shortfall Threshold (REST) that will define an acceptable level of reliability risk relative to severe weather events impacting grid operations; results from the Probabilistic Energy Adequacy Tool (PEAT) will inform this work.

System Planning anchor projects include work to comply with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order No. 2023 and, relatedly, assessing the interconnection standard for charging electric storage resources (ESRs) and improvements to the Proposed Plan Application (PPA) study process for distributed energy resources (DERs). Also underway is the development of a process to operationalize transmission investments identified in Longer-Term Transmission Studies.

In technology, anchor projects include work on the software and business process changes needed to support the implementation of the Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Initiative (DASI) in 2025, and work to implement the next Generation Electricity Management (nGEM) real-time market clearing engine, also expected in 2025 (the day-ahead nGEM went into place this year).

The Annual Work Plan is published each fall and updated each spring. The ISO solicits input from stakeholders by sharing and discussing the plan with the New England Power Pool (NEPOOL) Participants Committee, as well as representatives of the New England states through the New England Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners (NECPUC) and the New England States Committee on Electricity (NESCOE). Ultimately, the work plan helps inform the ISO’s annual budget.