Dive Brief:
- The California ISO this week approved a measure aiming to enhance the ability of demand response to participate in the wholesale power markets as part of the state's efforts to allow greater market participation for a wider range of resources.
- The CAISO board also agreed to to extend temporary measures put into place to manage the impacts of the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility restrictions.
- The state's largest utilities also asked regulatory to authorize them to sign contracts for more than 200 MW of demand response resources bid in California's third Demand Response Auction Mechanism (DRAM).
Dive Insight:
California is increasingly turning to load management strategies, expanding the abilities of demand response and distributed energy resources to compete in electricity markets while using specific rules to manage possible shortages related to the Aliso Canyon leak.
The new ISO rules will give providers three new ways to evaluate demand response performance that will better reflect different types of demand response and their configurations. The new rules are the result of an ongoing stakeholder process focused on demand response and energy storage.
Additionally, because gas injections and withdrawals from the the Aliso Canyon facility are still restricted, the board also approved extending temporary market measures beyond their Nov. 30 expiration. One of the measures enables grid operators to limit the amount of gas that generators can burn during gas supply shortages, "and has proven to be particularly effective in reducing the risks of power supply interruptions," the ISO said in a statement.
Greentech Media reports the third round of California's DRAM auction returned more than 200 MW of demand response resources.
In the first auction, utilities accepted bids for about 40 MW of demand response. In the second, the resource grew to 80 MW, but there were complaints that utilities should have acquired even more. The third round of 200 MW marks a rapid growth in the auction, but GTM also notes some of the bidders have changed.
OhmConnect, Sunrun and Tesla were among the auction winners. Previous winners eMotorWerks, EnergyHub and Advanced Microgrid Solutions, were not selected in this round.
