Under the California ISO’s tariff and applicable interconnection agreements, certain resources within the ISO’s balancing authority area have an obligation to provide primary frequency response capability:
- Participating generators equipped with a governor (ISO Tariff Section 4.6.5.1);
- Resources certified to provide spinning reserve (ISO Tariff Section 8.4.4); and
- Resources, synchronous or non-synchronous, that have a requirement to comply with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order No. 842 (Essential Reliability Services and the Evolving Bulk-Power System—Primary Frequency Response 162 FERC ¶ 61,128 (2018).
Scheduling coordinators for these resources and resource owners/operators should validate whether they have configured their resource controls to provide primary frequency response capability consistent with the ISO tariff and their applicable interconnection agreements.