On December 20, 2012, FERC issued Order No. 764-A, denying rehearing and affirming its Integration of Variable Energy Resources (“VER”) rule established in Order No. 764.  However, FERC did clarify various parts of its original VER rule and agreed to extend the rule’s compliance deadline from September 11, 2013, to November 12, 2013.  By extending the compliance deadline, FERC will allow transmission providers to implement their reforms outside of the summer peak season. 

Order No. 764, issued in June of 2012 (see June 26, 2012 edition of the WER), was designed to address the increase in certain renewable energy resources, or VERs, being brought online and remove barriers for VER integration.  Specifically, FERC determined in Order No. 764 that required transmission providers to give customers the option of adjusting their transmission schedules at 15-minute intervals, but also required VER generators to provide transmission owners with certain meteorological and forced outage data in order to improve power production forecasting.

After issuing Order No. 764, FERC received multiple requests for rehearing and clarification regarding: 1) intra-hour scheduling and forecasting reforms; 2) statements addressing transmission provider’s obligation to offer generator regulation services; and 3) the estimated burden on small entities to comply with Order No. 764.  In addressing these requests, FERC affirmed all the basic determinations of Order No. 764 and provided clarification on multiple issues.  Notably, FERC clarified that the intra-hour scheduling reform applies to all transmission customers that schedule transmission service under an Open Access Transmission Tariff, and that “any customer scheduling transmission service is eligible to adjust its schedule on a 15-minute basis.”  As such, FERC stated that this includes “load service entities, entities using point-to-point transmission service to schedule to loads, and transmission customers using network service.”   

Regarding the calculation of imbalance charges, FERC clarified that when a transmission customer using 15-minute scheduling is taking service from a transmission provider using an hourly imbalance charges, the transmission provider must average the imbalances of each 15-minute scheduling period over the entire hour.  Additionally, FERC clarified that a firm transmission schedule has curtailment priority over a non-firm transmission schedule using a 15-minute interval schedule.

FERC also denied requests to allow transmission providers to unilaterally amend existing Large Generator Interconnection Agreements to include data reporting requirements for existing interconnection customers.  FERC stated that it would be administratively burdensome to retroactively apply such requirements to existing interconnection customers and reiterated that the data reporting requirements should only apply to new interconnection customers.  Additionally, FERC refused to address generic scenarios or models regarding generator regulation service proposals or rate design.  Instead, FERC stated that these concerns would be best addressed on a case-by-case basis or in a section 205 filing.

A copy of the order is available here.