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 September, the monthly Integrated Forward Market (IFM) average procurement decreased for regulation down, spinning reserves, and non-spinning reserves, while increasing for regulation up compared to the previous month. The monthly IFM average prices increased for regulation down, while decreasing for regulation up, spinning reserves, and non-spinning reserves compared to the previous month.

Table 6.1: IFM Monthly Average Ancillary Service Procurement
Month August 2026 September 2026 Percent Change
Regulation_Up 752 910 21.0%
Regulation_Down 947 933 -1.5%
Spin 824 762 -7.5%
Non_Spin 1218 1077 -11.6%
Table 6.2: IFM Monthly Average Ancillary Service Price
Ancillary Service August 2026 September 2026 Percent Change
Regulation_Up $5.70 $4.96 -13.081%
Regulation_Down $3.98 $4.01 0.793%
Spin $3.27 $1.83 -43.971%
Non_Spin $3.13 $1.75 -44.041%

Figure 6.1 shows the daily IFM average ancillary service prices.

Day-ahead ancillary service prices remained volatile in September.

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