This summer, New York’s grid could face its slimmest reliability margins in recent history. (Utility Dive)
NYISO projects a baseline summer reliability margin of 417 MW this year—an 80% freefall from the 1.9-GW buffer the system held in 2022. The drivers? An aging generation fleet plus a lack of new dispatchable resources.
The threat: If a three-day, 95-degree heat wave parks over the state, that baseline drops to a projected -1.7 GW. NYISO can still pursue 3.2 GW of emergency actions to stave off blackouts, but the operational headroom is exceptionally thin.