The New England Power Pool (NEPOOL) is asking FERC to allow it to change the treatment of installed capability (ICAP) transactions in order to make it easier to trade ICAP and firm energy products across control area boundaries. NEPOOL said that its proposed market rule revisions represent a significant step in facilitating inter-control area trading of ICAP, while also focusing on New England’s largest export market, New York.

NEPOOL, in a filing made at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the end of last week, said that its suggested changes provide for the sale of ICAP to other control areas by specifying that energy associated with such transactions would not be subject to recall by ISO New England. In order to be recognized as ICAP in New England, the proposed market rules require that ICAP imports across the New York interface purchase transmission and buy through congestion to assure delivery to the NEPOOL transmission system. They also require system power contract schedules to be firm obligations of the control area that are to be maintained even when the seller’s control area is shedding load. As currently proposed, ICAP sales into New York must be structured as unit contracts.

The revised market rules also impose a notification requirement when the unit supporting an ICAP sale to New York becomes unavailable. The notification requirement will allow the New York Independent System Operator to become aware that the energy associated with such a sale may be unavailable if needed. These changes are expected to allow NEPOOL participants to sell unit contracts for ICAP into New York without jeopardizing the reliability of the NEPOOL control area.

NEPOOL, at the request of ISO New England, asked FERC to set an effective date of Sept. 1, 2001 for the market rule changes. NEPOOL argued that the changes may affect dispatch of the system and, therefore, must go into effect as of the beginning of a calendar month. “Since there would not be a reasonable opportunity for market participants to comment on this filing and the Commission to act in July for an Aug. 1, 2001 effective date, NEPOOL urges the Commission to act on this filing in August for a Sept. 1, 2001 effective date.”

©Copyright 2001 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.