Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has opened qualification for November’s capacity auction, where batteries compete for six-month availability obligations.
From ESS News
IESO, the grid and wholesale electricity market operator in the Canadian province of Ontario, is taking qualification requests for its November capacity auction, the short-term market where batteries compete with generators, imports, and demand response for six-month availability obligations.
Participants have until Sept. 25 to submit capacity qualification requests for resources they plan to offer, the grid operator said. It will then set a qualified capacity value and auction deposit for each resource, and those meeting the deposit requirements can bid in November up to their qualified capacity.
Offers will be accepted Nov. 25 to 26, according to IESO’s auction timeline, for a summer 2027 obligation period running May 1 to Oct. 31 and a winter period running Nov. 1, 2027, to April 30, 2028.
The 2025 auction secured 1,833 MW for summer 2026 and 1,125 MW for winter 2026–27, IESO said in December. It said the total cost of that capacity would represent about 1% of total system costs.
The operator describes the auction as a short-term balancing mechanism for existing and non-committed resources, separate from the long-term contracts it uses to procure new capacity. IESO’s LT1 procurement secured 1,784 MW of battery storage across 10 facilities, and its expedited E-LT1 round contracted about 882 MW. In June, the first capacity window of its LT2 procurement selected three eight-hour battery projects totaling 640 MW.
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