California, United States.
Wholesale design: nodal energy, ancillary-service, and day-ahead flexibility market with a multi-BAA Extended Day-Ahead Market, embedded in a state-led bilateral resource-adequacy framework.
Energy in CAISO trades in 3 layers: Day-Ahead Market, Extended Day-Ahead Market and Real-Time Market. Participation in Real-Time Market is mandatory. Scheduling and settlement, where the official sources state them, are in the table below.
| Layer | Scheduling | Settlement |
|---|---|---|
| Day-Ahead Market | hourly awards with fifteen-minute granularity introduced through market enhancements where applicable | locational marginal pricing for energy and ancillary-service marginal prices |
| Extended Day-Ahead Market | multi-balancing-authority-area day-ahead optimization with hourly energy and reliability-capacity awards and day-ahead procurement of fifteen-minute-dispatchable imbalance reserves | locational marginal pricing for energy and product-specific marginal prices for imbalance reserve and reliability capacity |
| Real-Time Market (mandatory) | fifteen-minute market and five-minute real-time dispatch | locational marginal pricing for energy and ancillary-service marginal prices |
CAISO has 10 ancillary-service products, across 5 families — regulation, contingency reserve, ramping reserve, reactive power & voltage and black start & restoration: Black Start, Imbalance Reserve Down, Imbalance Reserve Up, Non-Spinning Reserve, Reliability Capacity Down, Reliability Capacity Up, Regulation Down, Regulation Up, and 2 more. Response timing, direction and eligibility for each are in the cards below, as the official sources state them.
Facts below are stated as the official sources state them. A missing line means the source does not state that value — never that the value is zero.
Follow automatic control signals to correct downward area-control error and frequency deviations.
Follow automatic control signals to correct upward area-control error and frequency deviations.
Provide offline or otherwise non-synchronized contingency reserve after a qualifying disturbance.
Procure downward capacity in residual unit commitment to manage potential oversupply when the day-ahead energy schedule is above the operator's forecast requirement.
RCD is an operational day-ahead reliability product. It is not California Resource Adequacy capacity and is not a long-term capacity auction.
Procure upward capacity in residual unit commitment so resources remain available when the day-ahead energy schedule is below the operator's forecast requirement.
RCU is an operational day-ahead reliability product. It is not California Resource Adequacy capacity and is not a long-term capacity auction.
Provide synchronized contingency reserve after a qualifying disturbance.
Reserve downward flexible ramp capability in the day-ahead market for uncertainty and variability between day-ahead schedules and real-time net load.
Reserve upward flexible ramp capability in the day-ahead market for uncertainty and variability between day-ahead schedules and real-time net load.
Maintain transmission-system voltage and reactive-power needs.
Start without external station power and support system restoration.
No central capacity market. CAISO has 1 capacity/adequacy arrangement — California Resource Adequacy program — and it works differently.
State and local regulatory authorities establish obligations; load-serving entities contract bilaterally and make showings to CAISO. CAISO's Capacity Procurement Mechanism is a backstop designation process, not a routine centralized capacity auction.
Current as of · from the Global Electricity Market Catalogue v1.2.0 (compiled to , CC BY 4.0). Facts belong to the linked official authorities; verify the current rules before design or bidding decisions.
The markets index holds the full set. For what the grid demands of a battery here, see the grid-code ride-through atlas.