All industry eyes are on NYC, and our experts were quick to respond with the analysis you need.

This blog post shares findings from our new report, available in the Reports section of Resurety's CleanSight platform.

New York City is the most expensive capacity market in the country, and it just got more expensive. Summer 2026 spot capacity in NYISO Zone J cleared at record levels above $32/kW-month, nearly triple the $12/kW-month average from 2024-2025. In July, Governor Hochul signed the country's first statewide moratorium on new hyperscale (50 MW or larger) data centers, pausing their permitting for up to a year in an effort to slow demand growth.

Our analysis finds the moratorium won't change the trajectory. Zone J capacity could average close to $30/kW-month from 2027 through 2040, making today's record prices the new normal, with a wide uncertainty band of $14–$42/kW-month. Here's why, and what it means if you buy or build power in New York City.

The moratorium targets demand, but the problem is supply.

Zone J's structural imbalance is well established: high load in a city with little room for new generation, and transmission constraints limiting how much cheaper upstate generation can be delivered. The recent price spikes aren't primarily a data center story. Load has been climbing steadily from electrification, while thermal generators retire faster than new generation and storage can backfill.

The moratorium does delay demand growth at the margin, but a pause of "up to one year" is small next to the revision NYISO itself made between its 2025 and 2026 planning releases, which pushed the expected transition to a winter-peaking system out into the 2040s. Under that revised forecast, the large seasonal gap in capacity pricing persists through 2040, with minimum winter prices averaging roughly 70% below peak summer prices.

NYISO’s approach is opposite PJM's, where the July 2026 Base Residual Auction again cleared at its administrative cap of $10/kW-month. Rather than slow demand, PJM is developing an expedited "bring your own new capacity" interconnection track that lets data centers contracting for new firm generation leapfrog the queue.

Storage buildout erodes its own capacity value

In 2025, NYISO changed its reference technology for net CONE from a simple-cycle gas turbine (SCGT) to a 2-hour battery energy storage system (BESS), aligning the market with New York's 2040 zero-emissions target. That cut net CONE in half, from $22/kW-month to $11/kW-month.

But the demand curve clears on unforced capacity (UCAP), not nameplate, and BESS carries a lower capacity accreditation factor (CAF) than a dispatchable SCGT so the UCAP reference point fell only 24%. More importantly, that CAF is a moving target. As batteries come online, they flatten the net-load peak and push back the critical window for capacity, exactly as recent BESS saturation has done in CAISO and ERCOT. Short-duration storage covers less of that window, so its accreditation falls.

Using the overlap between NYISO's projections and those of independent market monitor Potomac Economics, 2-hour BESS CAF drops from 64% in 2026 to 35% in 2030 and 11% by 2040.

Because it takes more and more nameplate BESS to deliver the same accredited capacity, the reference point rises. By 2030, the UCAP reference point from BESS exceeds what it would be under SCGT — leaving NYISO to choose between reverting to gas as the reference technology to manage prices, or sticking with a BESS reference that pushes costs higher still.

Excess capacity is the single biggest driver

Where the market actually clears depends on how much capacity gets bid in above the minimum requirement. Historically that cushion has been comfortable (108% of the requirement in summer and 115% in winter, against a 118% zero-crossing point) so prices stayed relatively contained. That cushion is now gone. The June 2026 Zone J auction cleared above $32/kW-month with just 100.09% coverage.

If historic levels of excess procurement somehow return, prices would land near $14/kW-month. But that would require significant new generation in a market with very little room for it. If the recent trend of minimal excess persists, the average approaches $40/kW-month. NYISO's most recent published demand curve targets 104.5% excess, which likely sets the practical ceiling for future auctions.

One near-term caveat: the 1.25 GW Champlain Hudson Power Express participated in its first Zone J auction in July, resetting prices to $12.41/kW-month. That relief is a stop gap. CHPE is blocked from winter auctions due to Canadian winter demand, and without more transmission or meaningful in-city buildout, demand trends and retirements push prices back toward the May and June records.

What this means

Buyers should stop treating capacity as a pass-through. Capacity, not energy, is what's repricing. Lock forward capacity where you can, and value long-tenor offtake against the forecast (~$30/kW-month) rather than the historical average. Because in-city and deliverable-to-city resources carry a structural premium that upstate clean energy can't capture without firm transmission, contracting for deliverability matters as much as contracting for MWh.

Developers should assume the accreditation math turns against short duration. Falling 2-hour CAF erodes capacity value at the same time UCAP prices rise. Early movers capture today's still-elevated accreditation, but a 2-hour build weakens materially the later it energizes. In Zone J, 4-hour and longer should be the design default for projects counting on capacity revenue.

Go deeper

The complete report walks through the NYISO demand curve mechanics, the underlying demand and storage buildout assumptions, and the full 2027–2040 price forecast across scenarios. Use the CleanSight platform to explore historical and forecast power prices in every ISO and simulate new projects, try our new Ask Discover tool to find and analyze the data for you, or work with our advisory teams for bespoke analysis.

The full-length What the NY Data Center Moratorium Means for Record Capacity Prices in NYC report is only available to CleanSight Reports subscribers. Contact us for access or to learn about our other services: [email protected].