New York's Grid at a Crossroads: Reliability, Load Growth, and How CPV Retail Can Help -

CPV RETAIL BLOG

February 13, 2026

New York’s Grid at a Crossroads: Reliability, Load Growth, and How CPV Retail Can Help

Start spreading the news, CPV Retail has entered the NYISO! With CPV Retail now able to support commercial and industrial brands in meeting their energy needs in New York, we examine the structure of the state’s dynamic grid and the key factors shaping this evolving marketplace.

A Changing Energy Landscape in New York

New York’s electric grid is undergoing significant transition. With accelerated load growth, ambitious decarbonization mandates, and limited new dispatchable generation coming online, the NYISO faces increasing complexity in planning and operations. Balancing reliability, affordability, and sustainability is becoming more challenging, especially downstate, where congestion costs, import reliance, and exposure to peak events are more pronounced.

NYISO manages the state’s electric grid and operates competitive wholesale markets. The NYISO coordinates power flow across high-voltage transmission lines, develops market and reliability rules to prevent congestion, and makes decisions that directly impact electricity prices, reliability, and state energy policy implementation.

Without centralized coordination, congestion and reliability risks would increase significantly.

What Makes New York’s Grid Unique (and Challenging)

Key reliability foundations include:

An installed capacity market that provides essential reliability “insurance”
Regional coordination with neighboring systems
A historically diverse fuel mix

Regional differences continue to widen:

Upstate: Growing renewable generation, increased industrial development, and greater self-sufficiency
Downstate: Higher congestion costs, heavier import dependence, and higher vulnerability during peak conditions

Load Growth Without New Power Coming Online

Recent NYISO and third-party analyses highlight declining net power imports into New York from 2021-2025, with rising electrification and large-load development. Transmission constraints and tightening reserve margins continue to impact lower costs passed on to customers.

Industrial expansion, including semiconductor and microchip manufacturing, is ramping up, further increasing demand. Every megawatt matters as reliability margins tighten.

Decarbonization Goals and Policy Pressures

Under New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), New York aims for 70% clean electricity by 2030 and 100% clean energy by 2040. However, current infrastructure limitations and rising demand are making these goals increasingly difficult to achieve. Additional challenges include political tension, with critics blaming policy mandates for the current situation and others pointing fingers at large growth for the inability to meet the CLCPA standards. This has led to state leadership navigating competing priorities, along with federal project uncertainty impacting wind and gas infrastructure.

Reliability Risks Are No Longer Theoretical

Events such as Winter Storm Elliott in 2022 highlighted peak-day vulnerabilities, especially in New York City. Customers are increasingly concerned about heating reliability, peak alerts, and forced load reductions. Meanwhile, the NYISO continues to evaluate large-load impacts, transmission needs, greenhouse-gas accounting methodologies, and capacity planning under new constraints.

How CPV Retail Helps Customers Navigate This Complexity

Building on CPV Retail’s presence in PJM, the expansion into NYISO extends the delivery of flexible solutions to C&I customers through our energy partners and consultants. Since entering the market in 2022, CPV Retail has served industries across government, healthcare, manufacturing, commercial real estate, universities, and more. Bringing our deep market expertise, we support customers navigating capacity markets with an ability to craft tailored solutions aligned with reliability needs, low-carbon objectives, and cost-effective measures.

CPV Retail is committed to delivering reliable, cost-effective, and low-carbon solutions and helping customers stay ahead in an increasingly complex energy environment. Choosing a partner with experience in policy impacts, market design, and operations is important, and CPV Retail can provide a range of solutions tailored to help you navigate your energy transition, as an all-of-the-above approach to New York’s Energy future is proving critical to maintain reliability. CPV operates the most efficient combined-cycle plant in the state, which helps us understand energy from all aspects and is something we look to leverage for our customers.

As New York’s energy future increasingly requires diverse strategies to ensure reliability, CPV operates the state’s most efficient combined-cycle plant, enabling comprehensive insight into energy systems and a benefit we extend to our clients.

PJM Regulatory Review

The Pennsylvania Governor successfully negotiated an agreement with PJM into an agreement which will extend the capacity price collar (floor and cap) for an additional two years. The cap will continue to be set at $325/MW-day through 2030, as the power market struggles to meet growing demand led by the data center buildout.
PJM appears to have come out of the recent prolonged cold event in a stronger position than during prior winter storms. Several factors contributed to the improved operational performance, including minimal production freeze-offs in the Northeast, gas/power coordination, lower realized demand forecasts due to various closures (i.e. schools), and fuel switching to oil.
Coal units were available and dispatched at peak demand, around 30,000 MW, which supported grid performance.

NYISO Regulatory Review

Like many RTOs, the NYISO is reviewing large-load interconnection reforms as the interconnection queue continues to grow and the impact of higher power prices becomes a political issue.
The summer–winter spread between peak loads is compressing, with expectations that winter peak demand will continue to grow faster than summer demand, creating additional challenges such as gas supply availability in an already constrained environment.

Market Drivers

Gas Storage/Year over year difference. A positive number is bearish, and a negative number is bullish.
Production /Year over year growth/trend is important in the context of demand growth.
LNG Exports/Year over year growth means demand is growing and should be looked at in comparison to production trend.
Mexican Exports/Add to LNG Exports to show a trend in exports compared to the production trend.
PJM Outages- generally seasonal in Spring or Fall/Can support short-term prices.
Gas Focused Rig Count/Is drilling increasing to grow production versus demand growth. This can be seen as impacting price in the future based on expected load growth.

Energy Market Update

Post–Winter Storm Fern analysis continues as markets digest record demand and extreme price spikes across much of the eastern United States. Iroquois Zone 2 stood out, with transactions reported as high as $300/MMBtu and instantaneous power prices reaching $4,000/MWh.
The previous weekly storage withdrawal record of 359 Bcf, set in 2018, was surpassed this year by 1 Bcf. Some demand destruction occurred, however, as extended school and government closures reduced peak loads, preventing both power and gas prices from climbing even higher.
PJM remains focused on accelerating the development of new dispatchable generation, as urgency around resource adequacy continues to intensify. At the same time, the political sensitivity surrounding rising power prices has grown, particularly as retail customers begin to see the impact of higher bills following the recent cold spell.
With milder weather now in place, spot prices have retreated sharply from Fern’s peak levels. Northeast gas prices for Presidents’ Day weekend are below $3/MMBtu, while day-ahead power prices are trading under $50/MWh.
LNG exports have returned to pre-Fern levels after falling by nearly 6 Bcf/d during the height of the cold event. Those export reductions helped stabilize the domestic market, as U.S. gas prices briefly rose above global LNG netbacks, effectively turning export demand into a form of “virtual storage.”
Continued cold in Europe has supported rapid withdrawals from storage and left inventories at record lows with more cold weather expected. Roughly 80% of US LNG exports have been heading to Europe which will continue through the summer’s re-fill season.