Go Back

Round 1: Market Sounding Meetings

CLOSED - These meetings are complete.

Identification of Prospective FFR Service Providers

The AESO identified market participants with technologies that can provide a proportional or discrete FFR response by 2025. Parties that met our minimum Eligibility Requirements, as defined below, were invited to participate in one-on-one meetings to:

  • Discuss and solicit feedback on potential:
    • FFR product design options, including potential technical and commercial requirements, being considered by the AESO.
    • FFR procurement design options being considered by the AESO.
  • Understand which assets (and associated volumes) may be capable of providing an FFR service by early 2025.

Eligibility Requirements

As noted in the AESO 2023 Reliability Requirments Roadmap, we have prioritized the procurement of Fact Frequency Response services as one of our near-term action plans to ensure frequency stability. We sought the input and expertise of industry partners to explore potential FFR procurement and product design options. Market participants were requested to review the following requirements carefully to determine if they were eligible to participate in our first round of market-sounding meetings:
  • You have a current or future pool asset located within the Alberta Balancing Authority Area.
  • You are a market participant that may be able to provide FFR services by 2025.
  • You manage--or anticipate managing--energy storage, hybrid generation or other assets that can meet the following minimum technical requirements, which include providing:
    • Discrete or proportional power response based on under-frequency detection.
      • Discrete response | Fixed volume response within 18 cycles (0.3 seconds) following under-frequency detection reaches 59.6 Hz.
      • Proportional response | Variable response, with power output in direct proportion to the magnitude of the frequency deviation.
    • Continuous response for one hour following under-frequency detection.
    • Under-frequency relay detection and event recording technology.
    • Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.

If they were able--or expected to be able--to meet these eligibility requirements, market participants were invited to contact us at FFRServices@aeso.ca(External link) by June 9, 2023, to schedule a meeting no later than June 14, 2023.

The AESO thanked all interested parties; however, due to our expedited schedule, we only engaged with parties that met our eligibility requirements.

Feedback received from participants during these market-sounding meetings was aggregated and shared with industry (please see Key Themes above).