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 May, the monthly IFM average procurement decreased for regulation up, regulation down, and non-spinning reserves, while increasing for spinning reserves compared to the previous month. The monthly IFM average prices increased for all ancillary service products compared to the previous month, except for spinning reserves, which decreased.

Table 6.1: IFM Monthly Average Ancillary Service Procurement
Month Apr-2026 May-2026 Percent Change
Regulation_Up 860 749 -12.9%
Regulation_Down 943 884 -6.3%
Spin 576 651 13.0%
Non-Spin 1129 1079 -4.4%
Table 6.2: IFM Monthly Average Ancillary Service Price
Ancillary Service Apr-2026 May-2026 Percent Change
Non-Spin $0.71 $0.74 3.8%
Regulation_Down $4.31 $5.18 20.1%
Regulation_Up $3.03 $3.76 24.0%
Spin $1.00 $0.90 -9.8%

Figure 6.1 shows the daily IFM average ancillary service prices.

Day-ahead ancillary service prices remained volatile in May, 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