More Questions for the NYISO

The New York State Assembly Committees that recently held hearings on the NYISO. In the aftermath of the hearings, the NYISO defended its anonymous bidding system and the practice of one of the market participants to demand $1,000/MWH for part of its output, and criticized the report of McCullough Research which indicates that the NYISO system of setting wholesale electricity prices is raising prices unnecessarily.

The response of McCullough Research rebuts the defenses of the NYISO and the New York PSC, and points to additional evidence of possible hockey-stick bidding and market manipulation:

In the twelve months of bidding data currently available from the New York ISO, 585,043 bids – approximately 12% of the total – had prices above $900/MWh. Since natural gas units at standard efficiencies would not normally have marginal costs above $200/MWh, this is a surprisingly high number of anomalous bids.

The Assembly Committees have now asked the NYISO to provide answers to additional questions. See NY probe of electricity market digs deeper, Times Union, April 9, 2009.