On May 21, 2019, FERC announced that it will convene a staff-led public meeting on July 15, 2019 to discuss ISO New England Inc.’s (“ISO-NE”) development of tariff revisions addressing the regional fuel security concerns discussed by FERC in a July 2, 2018 order.  Commissioners from FERC are invited to attend and participate in the meeting, along with their staffs.

The public meeting will take place in the Commission Meeting Room at FERC headquarters in Washington, D.C.  The meeting was requested jointly by ISO-NE and the New England Power Pool (“NEPOOL”) Participants Committee with the goal of sharing information on the efforts to develop the proposed tariff revisions.  The meeting will consist of three 90-minute presentations by ISO-NE, NEPOOL stakeholders, and representatives from New England states.

For background on the fuel security proceedings, on July 2, 2018, FERC instituted a Federal Power Act section 206 proceeding because, according to FERC, ISO-NE’s Tariff may have been unjust and unreasonable because it did not sufficiently address specific regional fuel security concerns (see July 11, 2018 edition of the WER).  On December 3, 2018, FERC accepted ISO-NE’s proposed temporary revisions to its Tariff that would enable ISO-NE to enter into cost-of-service agreements with certain retiring generators that are deemed necessary to regional fuel security and reliability (see December 12, 2018 edition of the WER).  Most recently, on March 25, 2019, ISO-NE submitted a proposal with FERC for an interim inventoried energy program that would provide incremental compensation to generation resources that maintain inventoried energy during cold periods when winter energy security is most stressed (see April 2, 2019 edition of the WER).

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m.  Interested parties may view the meeting via webcast here.  A copy of the announcement is available here.