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On March 28, 2014, FERC announced it will hold a technical conference to explore opportunities for increasing real-time and day-ahead market efficiency though improved software.  FERC’s announcement stated that the discussion at the June 23-25, 2014 conference will include the research and steps required to implement improvements to market modeling in a variety of areas.

FERC’s new web-based approach for the Electric Quarterly Report (“EQR”) filing process went live on April 1st.  In Order No. 770, FERC revised the EQR filing process, eliminating filing through FERC-distributed software and introducing a web-based approach that allows users to file directly through FERC’s website (see March 10, 2014 edition of the WER).

On March 20, 2014, FERC issued a declaratory order holding that the Montana Public Service Commission’s (“Montana PSC”) implementation of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (“PURPA”) was inconsistent with PURPA and FERC’s regulations.  However, FERC declined to exercise its enforcement authority under PURPA and initiate an enforcement action against the Montana PSC.

On March 21, 2014, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC”) Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (“Division of Oversight”) issued a letter (“CFTC Letter No. 14-34”) concluding, subject to certain conditions, it would not recommend enforcement action against a party for failure to register as a swap dealer with respect to utility business-related swaps with public power utilities.

On March 20, 2014, FERC issued a pilot project license to Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County, Washington (“Snohomish PUD”) for the 600-kilowatt Admiralty Intel Pilot Tidal Project in Puget Sound, Washington.  Snohomish PUD proposes to install and operate a hydrokinetic turbine for a 10-year period to investigate whether tidal energy is commercially viable in Puget Sound.  The project will evaluate the performance, cost, and environmental effects of hydrokinetic tidal energy. 

On March 20, 2014, FERC partially clarified and denied rehearing of Order No. 791, which approved the Version 5 Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) Reliability Standards.  The Commission clarified issues surrounding the implementation of the order as well as the requirement that the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) conduct a survey of certain types of cyber assets.

On March 14, 2014, the WER reported that the FERC General Counsel issued an opinion that an owner or operator of a facility could not claim qualifying facility (“QF”) status unless it filed a notice of self-certification and FERC granted its application for certification.  That sentence should have stated that…

On March 5, 2014, FERC’s Acting General Counsel David Morenoff issued an opinion letter addressing the requirements for claiming qualifying facility (“QF”) status in response to a request made on behalf of NRG Power Midwest, LP.  In the letter, Morenoff concluded that: (1) the owner or operator of a facility could not claim QF status unless it filed a notice of self-certification, FERC granted an application for certification, or FERC granted a waiver of the requirement that the QF make a notice filing; (2) actual or constructive notice of facility characteristics outside of the certification process does not confer QF status; and (3) the notice of self-certification is prospective from the date of filing unless FERC grants retroactive application via a declaratory order.