In the Forward Capacity Market (FCM), resources have three annual opportunities to acquire or shed all or part of their capacity supply obligations (CSOs) before the capacity commitment period (CCP) begins. In each of these three annual opportunities, resources trade CSOs for the entire CCP in conjunction with the opportunity to enter into annual reconfiguration transactions. For each CCP, 24 additional monthly and 3 annual events with ART's are held to allow resources to trade CSOs for either a year or a single month at a time. In total, a given CCP includes the following:
The general timeline for FCM events for a single CCP is shown below. The specific dates can be found in the FCA calendars.
Both CSO bilateral periods and reconfiguration auctions offer opportunities for resources to increase or decrease their CSOs. In both cases, a resource can only increase its CSO if its qualified capacity is greater than its existing CSO:
