On February 28, 2013, FERC accepted and suspended Potomac Electric Power Company and Delmarva Power & Light Company’s (collectively, “PHI Companies”) tariff revisions to recover costs related to abandonment of the Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway (“MAPP”) Project.  The Commission, however, required the removal of previously-awarded return on equity (“ROE”) incentive adders for regional transmission organization (“RTO”) participation and for the risks and challenges of the project.  FERC concluded that due to the abandonment of the MAPP Project, the adders were no longer appropriate.  FERC set the issue of the reasonableness of the specific amount of abandonment costs for hearing.

On March 5, 2013, FERC announced the details of its upcoming technical conference focused on the scheduling practices of natural gas and electric markets.  The technical conference is the second of two technical conferences ordered by FERC in a November 15, 2012 order to address common issues raised during regional conferences (see November 16, 2012 edition of the WER).  The first technical conference was held on February 13, 2013, and addressed communication issues between the two industries (see February 14, 2012 edition of the WER).

On Thursday, February 28, 2013, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) filed proposed revisions to its Standard Processes Manual (“SPM”) with FERC.  The SPM contains the procedures that govern NERC’s development of mandatory reliability standards.  NERC explained that the purpose of updating the SPM is to streamline the drafting, commenting and balloting processes used to develop mandatory reliability standards, and to provide greater clarity throughout the entire process.

On February 21, 2013, FERC authorized Cheniere Creole Trail Pipeline, L.P. (“Creole Trail”) to modify its current pipeline system in Cameron and Beauregard Parishes, Louisiana so that it will allow bi-directional flow to deliver domestic gas to the liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) terminal owned by Sabine Pass LNG, L.P. (“Sabine Pass”).

On Thursday, February 21, 2013, FERC issued a Final Rule approving a new regional reliability standard, PRC-006-NPCC-1, designed to ensure the development of an effective automatic underfrequency load shedding (“UFLS”) program in the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (“NPCC”) Region.

On February 15, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) issued an order upholding FERC’s determination that the rates stemming from an ISO New England, Inc. (“ISO-NE”) Forward Capacity Market are not contractual, although challenges to the forward capacity market rates are subject to the same Mobile-Sierra public interest (as opposed to the just and reasonable) standard as contracted rates.  This case is significant because the D.C. Circuit upheld the use of a legal standard normally applied in contractual situations to rates produced by tariff provisions.