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Today’s LiveWire Spotlight deals with a FERC White Paper exploring the need to add flexibility in the electric system market structure to deal with the increasing penetration of variable resources.  The authors anticipate a period of vulnerability as stabilizing baseline resources (coal and nuclear) are retired before their replacements (battery and hybrid systems) can be deployed in scale.  They conclude with a description of market solutions already implemented by a handful of RTOs/ISOs and a few others under consideration – with a goal of assembling a common package available across the U.S.

The adoption rate of variable resources in each region affects the complexity of the market services needed to assure generator/load balance.  Already, renewables make up over 25% of the mix in CAISO and SPP; and supply 74% of RTO/ISO total capacity at times.