Content area
Full text
The California ISO can pursue reliability contracts for the output of two natural gas-fired plants in southern California for 2019, the grid operator's board decided July 26, just days after the region saw soaring temperatures and power prices.
The ISO has been criticized for its increasing reliance on backstop tools like reliability must-run, or RMR, contracts to ensure adequate power supply. But reforms to the state's resource adequacy program and the ISO's backstop procurement programs have been long-running and complicated.
The board's yes vote on July 26 means that the ISO can start hammering out cost-based RMR deals with the two NRG Energy Inc. plants: the 54-MW Ellwood Generating Station in Goleta, Calif., and one of the generating units at the 1,516-MW Ormond Beach Generating Station in Oxnard, Calif. Ormond unit 1 has a capacity of 741 MW and Ormond unit 2 has a capacity of 775 MW. All three of the...