Strategic Planning Initiative Key Project

Access documents related to the development of ISO New England’s Strategic Planning Initiative (SPI).

Project Overview

The ISO launched the SPI along with the six New England states and other regional stakeholders, in late 2010 to identify, analyze, understand, and determine solutions to address threats to the reliable supply of electricity stemming from a unique convergence of economic and environmental factors in New England. These factors are having a serious impact on the diversity, flexibility, and performance of the region’s resource mix:

• Challenge 1: Increasing reliance on natural gas as a fuel source for power plants and the potential for reduced operational performance during stressed system conditions
• Challenge 2: The large number of aging, economically-challenged oil- and coal-fired generators that provide fuel diversity to the resource mix
• Challenge 3: Greater future needs for flexible supply resources to balance variable, renewable resources that have operating characteristics markedly different from those of traditional generating resources

Many of the key projects recently completed or underway at the ISO to address these key challenges have resulted from this initiative and are designed to enhance the region's competitive wholesale electricity markets and ensure reliable operation of the power grid.

For details, see the ISO’s annual Regional Electricity Outlook.