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 March the monthly IFM average procurement increased for all types of reserves compared to the previous month. The monthly IFM average prices also increased for all types of reserves compared to the previous month.

Table 6.1: IFM Monthly Average Ancillary Service Procurement
Month Feb-2026 Mar-2026 Percent Change
Regulation_Up 806 896 11.17%
Regulation_Down 888 916 3.15%
Spin 651 666 2.30%
Non-Spin 836 1002 19.86%
Table 6.2: IFM Monthly Average Ancillary Service Price
Ancillary Service Feb-2026 Mar-2026 Percent Change
Non-Spin $0.69 $1.02 47.6%
Regulation_Down $3.26 $4.38 34.7%
Regulation_Up $2.15 $3.22 49.6%
Spin $0.71 $1.18 67.3%

Figure 6.1 shows the daily IFM average ancillary service prices.

Day-ahead ancillary service prices remained volatile in March, 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