Scheduling energy and ancillary service in the new Ontario electricity market

The wholesale market for electric energy is being opened up to more competition throughout North America and much of the rest of the world. This change has caused the origination of new independent operators of the electrical energy systems. The Province of Ontario in Canada is in the process of setting up such an operator which they call The Independent Electricity Market Operator or IMO. The IMO will run markets that will be used to schedule energy and operating reserves. In addition the IMO will procure other ancillary services via contracts. This paper describes the operation of the IMO markets for energy and ancillary services including the time lines of the market and the market processes.