California ISO Adopts Policies Supporting Grid Reliability

In their final meetings of the year, the California Independent System Operator’s (ISO) governing entities adopted policies and tools to support system reliability and selected the 2023 chair and vice chair for the Board of Governors.

With nearly 5,000 MW of storage resources now connected to the grid, the storage enhancements proposal reflects the ISO’s continuing work with industry stakeholders to refine its policies ensuring batteries are accurately priced in the real-time market and fully charged to provide energy when needed.

The Energy Storage Enhancements proposal adopted by the Board and WEIM Governing Body encompassed several refinements, including:

• Improved accounting of a battery’s state of charge, certifying the resources areavailable when needed.
• Improved tools for exceptional dispatch to make sure the resources are adequately compensated so the batteries’ energy is available to meet load during peak hours.

The Board and Governing Body also approved the WEIM Resource Sufficiency Evaluation (RSE) Enhancement Phase 2 initiative to make sure the WEIm entities have enough capacity and energy in the real-time market to meet their demand before voluntarily transferring electricity to other participants.