On January 16, 2025, FERC approved a contested settlement agreement and rate schedule governing the provision of reliability must-run (“RMR”) service from the Indian River Unit 4 generating facility (“Unit 4”) in PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”).
Juan Dawson
FERC Partially Accepts NorthWestern’s Order Nos. 2023 and 2023-A Compliance Filing
On November 21, 2024, FERC issued an Order partially accepting NorthWestern Energy Corporation’s (“NorthWestern”) compliance filing, effective July 10, 2024. FERC found that NorthWestern’s filing partially complies with the requirements of Order Nos. 2023 and 2023-A and directed NorthWestern to submit a further compliance filing within 60 days.
FERC Dismisses Challenges Related to Market-to-Market Coordination over Data Center-Constrained Flowgate
On September 10, 2024, FERC issued an Order denying two complaints. The first complaint was filed on January 23, 2023 by Montana-Dakota Utilities Company (“MDU”) against Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) and Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (“SPP”). The second complaint was filed on March 8, 2024 by MISO against…
D.C. Circuit Finds That Interconnection Customers are Responsible for Network Upgrade Costs
On July 19, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) issued an Order denying Tenaska Clear Creek Wind, LLC’s (“Clear Creek”) challenges to FERC’s orders allowing the allocation of costs for network upgrades. Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (“SPP”) assigned costs of more than $100 million to Clear Creek to pay for upgrades required on SPP’s system to accommodate the interconnection of Clear Creek’s wind turbine-powered electrical generation project (the “Project”).
D.C. Circuit Denies Food & Water Watch’s Challenges to FERC’s GHG Review in NGA Certificate Proceeding
On June 14, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) denied Food & Water Watch’s environmental challenges to the FERC’s order granting a certificate of public convenience and necessity (“CPCN”) to Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company (“Tennessee Gas”) for its East 300 Upgrade Project (“Project”).
FERC Dismisses Lackawanna Complaint Against PJM Seeking “Stability Limit”-Related Lost Opportunity Costs
On May 23, 2024, FERC issued an Order denying Lackawanna Energy Center LLC’s (“Lackawanna”) complaint against PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) alleging that PJM failed to reimburse Lackawanna for lost opportunity costs (“LOC”) incurred following allegedly improper curtailment orders from PJM during a 2023 transmission line outage. Lackawanna argued that PJM’s curtailment of its generation output violated the Federal Power Act and the PJM Tariff, which typically allow for LOC payments when generator output is reduced due to transmission constraints or reliability issues. FERC dismissed all claims raised in the complaint.
FERC Accepts CAISO’s Request to Raise Soft Cap Offer
On April 25, 2024, FERC approved the California Independent System Operator Corporation’s (“CAISO”) request to increase its capacity procurement mechanism (“CPM”) soft cap offer from $6.31/kW-month to $7.32, which will become effective in June 2024.
MISO Seeks to Reform Resource Accreditation Requirements
On March 28, 2024, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) submitted a filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) proposing revisions to its Open Access Transmission, Energy and Operating Reserve Markets Tariff (“Tariff”) to implement a direct loss of load (“DLOL”) based accreditation methodology. The DLOL methodology will be used to accredit resources for MISO’s annual Planning Resource Auction and to determine a load serving entity’s resource adequacy for each season during the applicable year. According to MISO, the proposal will better account for how different resources bolster grid reliability during stress periods. MISO requests that the tariff revisions take effect on September 1, 2024.
FERC Initiates Inquiry into Capacity Allocation on Non-Contiguous Pipeline Segments
On March 21, 2024, FERC issued a Notice of Inquiry (“NOI”) seeking additional information on whether the Commission should continue to allow interstate pipelines to package “high value” capacity with non-contiguous and operationally unrelated parcels of capacity in a single auction or open season, thus requiring interested bidders to bid on both segments of capacity. Initial comments on the NOI are due by June 20, 2024.
Troutman Pepper Summary of FERC Order No. 2023-A on Generator Interconnections
Executive Summary
On March 21, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) issued Order No. 2023-A (Final Rule), which reaffirmed aspects of Order No. 2023 — the Commission’s landmark order updating its generator interconnection procedures. As detailed further in this summary, the Commission largely upheld Order No. 2023, including some of the more controversial aspects of the order, such as penalties and the transmission capacity “heat map,” and provided further clarity on other aspects.