On March 19, 2026, FERC issued Order No. 919, which approved eleven proposed Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Reliability Standards, four new definitions, and eighteen proposed revised definitions to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) Glossary of Terms Used in Reliability Standards (NERC Glossary). FERC asserted that the new and revised definitions and new CIP Reliability Standards will support entities’ adoption of virtualization, which will improve the reliability of the Bulk-Power System against cyber security threats. NERC’s revisions will become effective the first day of the first calendar quarter that is 24 months after Order No. 919’s May 26, 2026, effective date, or April 1, 2028.

On March 19, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) granted Golden Triangle Storage, LLC (“Golden Triangle”) a certificate of public convenience and necessity under section 7(c) of the Natural Gas Act for its Spindletop Expansion Project (“Spindletop” or “Project”) in Jefferson County, Texas, subject to detailed engineering and environmental conditions.  In the same order, FERC reaffirmed Golden Triangle’s authority to charge market-based rates for storage and hub services and granted associated waivers of cost-based accounting and reporting requirements.

On March 30, 2026, FERC accepted to ISO New England Inc.’s (ISO-NE) Transmission, Markets and Services Tariff (Tariff) that primarily replaces the existing Forward Capacity Market (FCM) with a prompt capacity market in which an Annual Capacity Auction (ACA) would be held approximately one month before the applicable period for…

On March 19, 2026, in Opinion No. 594, FERC issued a long-awaited decision in litigation about the base Return on Equity (ROE) to be earned by the New England Transmission Owners (NETOs). Previous iterations of the Commission had failed to address the 2017 remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) in Emera Maine v. FERC. FERC set the NETOs’ ROE at 9.57%. In addition to applying that new ROE going forward, FERC backdated the new rate to October 16, 2014, and ordered the NETOs to issue refunds with interest to implement that directive. FERC separately required refunds for the 15-month refund period from October 1, 2011, through December 31, 2012. FERC’s authority to backdate new rates under section 206 has been challenged in other cases recently.

On March 19, 2026, FERC approved Southwest Power Pool, Inc.’s (SPP) System Support Resource (SSR) program to allow SPP, under specified conditions, to keep certain generating units that plan to retire temporarily online when they are needed to maintain reliability of the bulk electric system in the SPP region.  In doing so, FERC found that SPP’s proposal appropriately balanced the need to maintain reliability with generator owners’ ability to implement their business plans.

On March 19, 2026, FERC approved Southwest Power Pool, Inc.’s (SPP) proposal to establish a Consolidated Planning Process (CPP) framework to streamline its regional transmission planning and generator interconnection process. FERC determined that SPP’s CPP framework complies with the regional transmission planning and cost allocation requirements of Order Nos. 890 and 1000, as well as the generator interconnection rules of Order Nos. 2003 and 2023. FERC accepted SPP’s proposed tariff revisions to implement CPP effective March 1, 2026, and directed SPP to submit a compliance filing making certain limited changes to the tariff revisions.

Host Bill Derasmo is joined by Chris McKissack, CEO of Fullmark Energy, to unpack the rise of standalone storage and the complexities of energy storage projects. From AI data centers to grid reliability, McKissack explains how batteries are quietly running the show. Hit play and get charged up on how storage is reshaping today’s power markets.

On March 2, 2026, U.S. Senators Dave McCormick (R‑PA) and Peter Welch (D‑VT) introduced the Reconductoring Existing Wires for Infrastructure Reliability and Expansion (REWIRE) Act of 2026, a bipartisan bill that would modify federal permitting rules and address upgrades to the existing U.S. electric transmission system. The legislation proposes, among other things, to create a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) categorical exclusion for certain grid capacity projects in existing rights-of-way, direct FERC to revise its rules on return on equity for advanced transmission conductors, authorize additional uses of the Department of Energy (DOE) State Energy Program funds, and establish new DOE programs for grid modeling and technical assistance.

On February 27, 2026, PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (PJM) filed revisions to its Open Access Transmission Tariff (Tariff) to establish an Expedited Interconnection Track process for Generating Facilities (EIT Process). According to the filing, the proposed EIT Process would enable PJM to consider up to 10 expedited interconnection requests per calendar year for large new or uprated Capacity Resources. PJM requested an effective date of July 31, 2026, for the tariff revisions implementing the proposed EIT Process and requested an order from FERC by May 28, 2026.