Section 6 Ancillary Services

IFM Procurement and Prices

Table 6.1 shows the monthly IFM average ancillary service procurement and Table 6.2 shows the monthly IFM average ancillary service prices.

In January the monthly IFM average procurement increased for regulation up and non-spinning, while decreased for regulation-down and spinning reserves compared to the previous month. The monthly IFM average prices increased for regulation up, regulation down, spinning and non-spinning reserves compared to the previous month.

Table 6.1: IFM Monthly Average Ancillary Service Procurement
Month Dec-2025 Jan-2026 Percent Change
Regulation_Up 602 740 22.9%
Regulation_Down 887 854 -3.7%
Spin 734 653 -11.0%
Non-Spin 900 939 4.3%
Table 6.2: IFM Monthly Average Ancillary Service Price
Ancillary Service Dec-2025 Jan-2026 Percent Change
Non-Spin $0.69 $0.82 19.7%
Regulation_Down $2.59 $2.89 11.4%
Regulation_Up $1.32 $1.85 40.0%
Spin $0.69 $0.92 33.1%

Figure 6.1 shows the daily IFM average ancillary service prices.

Day-ahead ancillary service prices remained volatile in January, similar to the previous month.

Figure 6.1: IFM (Day-Ahead) Ancillary Service Average Price

IFM (Day-Ahead) Ancillary Service Average Price

Daily average ancillary procurement and prices in the real-time market (FMM) are shown in the Appendix.

Scarcity Events

The ancillary services scarcity pricing mechanism is triggered when the ISO is not able to procure the target quantity of one or more ancillary services in the IFM and real-time market runs. The scarcity events in this month are shown in Table 6.3 below.

Table 6.3: Ancillary Service Scarcity Events
Date Hour Ending Interval Ancillary Service Region Shortfall Percentage of requirement