NYISO BLOG

More than megawatts, resources powering the grid must deliver specific capabilities to maintain reliability under dynamic conditions.

In 1896, 20 years after the world’s first power grid began illuminating the streets of Manhattan, the first long-distance transmission lines were built to deliver electricity from Niagara Falls to Buffalo. The innovation signaled a new era in which power could be carried over long-distance transmission lines to meet the needs of distant energy users.

The cold spell that blanketed much of the country in late January required NYISO’s operations team to use an important resource that hasn’t been called on in winter for more than a decade: Demand Response (DR).

Manish Sainani says that while growing up in Mumbai, India, he was always inclined toward engineering and had an interest in renewable energy. That put him on a path toward a career at the NYISO, where he is currently an associate market design specialist helping to shape the future of electricity markets in New York.

With a fast-changing electric system, planning for future grid reliability has become an increasingly complex process, requiring careful consideration of many possible outcomes.

According to data from NYISO's 2024 Gold Book, 126 fossil-fuel generators that power the grid across New York are at least 40 years old. These units can generate 12,500 megawatts (MW) – which represents approximately a third of total summer capacity.

As winter weather continues to impact much of the nation, demand for natural gas is on the rise, leading to an increase in the cost of electricity for New York consumers.

With winter electricity demand on the rise, a new electric system planning rule was put in place in 2024 to model gas availability for generators during colder months.

Collaboration between the industry and government will be paramount to maintain robust wholesale markets and ensure grid reliability as the state continues to promote rapid development of renewable resources in the coming year.

NYISO Procurement Manager Samantha Torngren knows a thing or two about breaking down barriers.

As temperatures drop, New Yorkers turn up their thermostats and demand for electricity rises.

New York’s planned phase out of several small gas-fired power plants in New York City and Long Island contributes to a new reliability deficiency by 2033, according to the findings in the NYISO’s 2024 Reliability Needs Assessment (RNA).

The NYISO convened its Environmental Advisory Council in late October to discuss timely issues associated with the state’s climate policy goals: grid reliability in the face of energy intensive economic development projects, and the continued need for additional investment in clean energy.

How will the demand for electricity, a changing generation mix, and the transmission system evolve over the next 10 years? This is the question that our Reliability Needs Assessment (RNA) examines in order to assess and identify impacts to reliability.

When the NYISO was first created in 1999 to run the power grid and wholesale electric markets for New York, it was structured as an independent entity serving under a transparent, shared governance platform approved and overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). An independent approach, it was believed, would best serve the interests of consumers and system reliability while also preventing any one entity or industry from unduly influencing operation of the system or market outcomes.

Going above and beyond is an essential part of the job for the NYISO’s Stakeholder Services team, which works every day to solve problems for market participants and stakeholders in a quickly changing electric industry.

The NYISO has provided a 30-day extension for resolving insufficient applications in its new interconnection process. The streamlined process is designed to accommodate a larger volume of renewable energy resources seeking to connect to the grid since the passage of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019.

As the diversity and scale of energy resources have evolved in recent years, NYISO’s market design team has been working hard to create and implement market innovations to support those technologies.

Growing up in Hefei, China, Wenjin Yan often watched her father, an electrical engineer, rush out the door to address a problem on the power grid.

The AC Transmission Projects, completed in 2023, have improved energy deliverability in so-called “wind pockets,” parts of New York where more renewable energy is produced than can be delivered to consumers.