Market Renewal Newsletter - March Update
March 28, 2023
Settlements Batch
In December, the IESO posted the Market Settlements, Metering and Billing market rules and market manuals and a summary of changes. You can view the engagement meeting recording to view the presentation. We’re in the process of reviewing stakeholder feedback and will post the response to stakeholder feedback by April 24.
Implementation Working Group
The Implementation Working Group held a meeting at the beginning of March focusing on discussion on the outstanding issues and participant readiness planning. View the materials.
Market Information Management (MIM) Technical Specifications
As part of the Market Renewal Program (MRP), changes are being made to the way Market Participants will interact with the Market Information Management (MIM) and the Dispatch Services systems. These applications are currently used by dispatchable Market Participants to submit bids and offers for the physical market and to receive dispatch instructions from the IESO. To prepare Market Participants, the IESO has posted an updated set of API technical specifications, schema and sample files. The Dispatch Services system APIs will be posted by the end of March.
IESO News
Oneida Energy Storage Project Update
Following a directive from the Minster of Energy, the IESO has finalized a 20-year agreement with Oneida Energy Storage LP. The 250-megawatt (MW) storage project is being developed in partnership with the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation, Northland Power, NRStor and Aecon Group and is expected to be operational in 2025.
The Oneida facility will help move the province forward in terms of adopting additional non-emitting forms of supply, as well as support reliability as the grid powers broader electrification efforts across other sectors of the economy.
Minister’s Directive on the Interruptible Rate Pilot
The Minister of Energy has asked the IESO to design and administer an Interruptible Rate Pilot (IRP) to explore opportunities to enhance demand management on the electricity system with the potential to reduce the cost of electricity for all consumers. The IRP will be designed to provide consumers with reduced electricity rates in exchange for agreeing to temporarily reduce demand, when directed by IESO. The pilot will run from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2026 and will procure up to 200 megawatts of interruptible demand through a competitive application process.
To promote growth in the hydrogen sector, the IESO will report back to the Minister by September 15, 2023 on a plan to design and implement an IRP that is tailored for hydrogen producers in Ontario that employ electrolyzers. To support this report-back, the IESO will engage with hydrogen production stakeholders on pilot design features that would support participation by and leverage the flexibility of electrolyzer-based hydrogen production facilities.
For more information, please visit the Interruptible Rate Pilot engagement web page.
Upcoming Events and Key Dates
Commercial Reconciliation Training Courses
In anticipation of the Replacement Settlement System (RSS) implementation date of May 1, 2023, the IESO will be holding four commercial reconciliation training course webinars on March 22 and 29, and April 4 and 12 at 1:00 p.m. These half-day, hands-on workshops will provide training on the IESO market settlements as well as the upcoming changes to the settlement system.
The settlement/commercial reconciliation webinars will be free of charge to all IESO market participants.
The Settlement Statements and Invoices and the Transmission Rights workbooks that will include the upcoming changes to the settlement system will be posted on the RSS web page shortly.
Did you know?
MRP Project Status Report
The IESO has posted the second quarterly update on MRP’s financial project status, as part of the OEB settlement agreement. Overall, the project remains on schedule, and is slightly under budget. View the report.