On February 21, 2018, the IESO released an Implementation Plan, Putting Ontario’s Long-Term Energy Plan Into Action, outlining the steps that will be taken to implement the Ontario government’s 2017 Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP), Delivering Fairness and Choice.
To support the government of Ontario’s objective of Delivering a Flexible and Efficient System, the IESO will be undertaking the following initiatives, among others, as specified in the Minister’s Directive to the IESO:
1. Develop a formal, integrated bulk system planning process;
2. Review and report on the existing regional planning process (local area planning) and provide options and recommendations. This includes, specifically, identifying barriers to the implementation of cost effective non-wires solutions such as conservation and demand management and distributed energy resources, and provide options to address any such barriers;
3. Develop a coordinated, cost-effective, long-term approach to replacing transmission assets at end of life, in order to better align investments with power system and market conditions and needs;
4. Develop a competitive transmitter selection or transmission procurement process that is transparent, efficient and able to respond to changing policy, market and system needs;
5. Review and report on its technical criteria used to assess customer reliability in order to identify and evaluate options for local area enhancements, including the cost and funding of any proposed changes.
As part of the above-mentioned initiatives, the IESO would like to consider strategies, processes and best practices undertaken within Canada, United States, Europe and elsewhere to inform any recommendations made for Ontario. The IESO requires external consulting support to gather the necessary information from jurisdictions outside Ontario, information gathered from the Service Provider will be used to inform IESO’s implementation of the above-mentioned initiatives.
