Planning and Forecasting

Short, Medium, and Long-Term Procurements

The Resource Adequacy Framework sets out the competitive strategy to procure electricity resources for short, medium, and long-term timeframes, balancing the needs and risks of both ratepayers and suppliers. This process aligns the acquisition of electricity resources with the system's evolving needs, ensuring the continued availability of electricity from various sources to maintain the reliability, sustainability, and affordability of Ontario's electricity system. Procurements are competitive and open to all resource types that meet eligibility requirements.

Short Term: The annual Capacity Auction is the competitive procurement mechanism in the IESO’s Resource Adequacy Framework that secures the capacity needed to meet the balance of Ontario’s resource adequacy needs on a short-term basis. It offers successful participants six-month obligations for either or both the summer and winter seasons.

For more information about the Capacity Auction, please visit the Capacity Auction webpage.

Medium Term: Through a series of medium-term Requests for Proposals (RFPs), the IESO offers five-year contracts with flexible start dates to both new and existing electricity generating resources. This structure allows electricity generation suppliers the ability to participate in the market until either the next long-term RFP or the next medium-term RFP. This five-year time frame provides certainty to the suppliers, while ensuring the IESO can remain flexible to changing needs.

For more information about the IESO’s medium-term procurements, please visit the Medium-Term RFP webpage.

Long Term: When the Annual Planning Outlook predicts that Ontario’s need for electricity over the next 25 years will not be met by existing electricity supply, long-term contracts can help spur investment into both new infrastructure and major upgrades to existing infrastructure.

For more information about the IESO’s long-term procurements, please visit the Long-Term RFP webpage.

Other Mechanisms

While the IESO prioritizes the use of competitive mechanisms, addressing Ontario’s growing reliability needs may require execution of other mechanisms within the Resource Adequacy Framework, including government programs and bilateral agreements. Programs help to meet electricity policy objectives in a more targeted manner, and bilateral agreements secure resources where a need exists that cannot be addressed in a practical and timely manner through competitive processes.

Target Setting and Stakeholder Engagement

To avoid the under- or over-commitment of resources, the IESO sets appropriate capacity and supply targets for short, medium and long-term procurements. As part of the annual planning process, the IESO reassesses Ontario’s electricity needs and monitors the technological advances within the electricity sector that may have benefits to the system, for example, reducing costs. Detailed information about target setting can be found in the 2024 Annual Planning Outlook, on the IESO’s Annual Planning Outlook webpage.

Stakeholder engagement and consultation is important to the IESO, and we gather feedback from the sector to ensure the details of upcoming procurements are fair and understood. Information about past and upcoming engagement sessions can be found on the IESO Engagements webpage, or by subscribing to our mailing list.

Please contact customer.relations@ieso.ca if you have any questions regarding the Resource Adequacy Framework.