On Tuesday of this week, clients of the Genscape New York Power IQ service received a presentation from Genscape analysts on internal West Zone congestion in NYISO. Zone A (West), located in western New York, is widely traded and is often used as a financial hedge due to the fact that it is rarely congested. However, in recent weeks and months, new constraints have increased volatility in zone A. Genscape previously reported on how this volatility has increased trading volume in New York (NYISO Trading Volumes Rise on Increased Volatility. 
After identifying the constraint and its impacts, Genscape analysts highlighted structural changes that have occurred over the past year from the ISO modeling shift to a market-based solution for the constraint to unit retirements and a shifting fuel mix in the zone A generation stack. Additionally, analysts laid out a framework and methodology for forecasting and understanding the constraint.
The chart below shows the frequency (count of hours) that an internal zone A constraint hit in either the Real-Time (Blue) or the Day Ahead (Red) from January 2012 to June 13 and the monthly average Real-Time Actual load in Zone A during the same time period. The constraint first bound in May 2012 and is load driven. Recently, the constraint has started to bind more frequently in both the Real-Time and Day-Ahead due to structural changes in zone A.
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