Access data and information related to ISO New England’s Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Market and real-time reserve pricing. See Applications and Status Changes if you’d like to do business in New England’s energy markets or need to make changes to your ISO account.
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Real-Time Reserve Market
Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Market
Updates on the retraining of ISO New England’s statistical model for forecasting real-time locational marginal prices
Reserve markets help incentivize market participants to provide reserve capacity, which is the amount of electricity that the system can produce beyond what it’s already producing to satisfy demand.
New England must have the ability to produce as much electricity as people need, the instant people need it, plus some backup capacity just in case. Reserve capacity is that backup—the “insurance policy” that allows the ISO to be able to keep electricity flowing in the event of any unexpected outages (like a large generator tripping offline) or other contingencies.
The amounts of reserve capacity that the ISO is required to maintain are detailed in Operating Procedure No. 8: Operating Reserve and Regulation (OP 8).
The ISO is required to establish an operating plan on a day-ahead basis for the following operating day. This operating plan must ensure sufficient physical energy supply capability to meet the operating reserve requirements noted above. In addition, the ISO must also ensure it has sufficient energy supply capability to meet expected energy demand (i.e., the load forecast) each day, per NERC Standard TOP-002-4.
The ISO is required to establish an operating plan on a day-ahead basis for the following operating day. This operating plan must ensure sufficient physical energy supply capability to meet the operating reserve requirements noted above. In addition, the ISO must also ensure it has sufficient energy supply capability to meet expected energy demand (i.e., the load forecast) each day, per NERC Standard TOP-002-4.
The Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Market is designed to:
The ISO conducts two competitive FRM auctions: one for the summer reserve period (June through September) and one for the winter reserve periods (October through May).
Real-time reserve pricing is designed to:
The Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Market is jointly optimized with the Day-Ahead Energy Market, and is cleared each day.
Real-time reserve pricing is designed to:
The ISO’s dispatch software selects which resources will serve load or serve as reserves. It is geared to meet the system’s requirements for both actual electricity and reserves for the lowest possible cost.
Other sections of the ISO website may also be helpful to you. Of note:
The Forward Reserve Market (FRM) was replaced by the Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Market on February 28, 2025. Historical data on the FRM remains available below:
