On October 17, 2019, FERC denied a complaint filed in June 2019 by Nevada Hydro Company, Inc. (“Nevada Hydro”) alleging that the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“CAISO”) failed to follow its Tariff requirements in studying the Lake Elsinore Advanced Pumped Storage Project (“LEAPS”) as a transmission facility in CAISO’s 2018-2019 transmission planning process. FERC concluded that Nevada Hydro failed to demonstrate that CAISO violated its Tariff in studying LEAPS as a proposed reliability-driven transmission solution and as a proposed economic transmission project. Rather, FERC accepted CAISO’s conclusion that it could identify no reliability need for LEAPS, and that the project’s economic benefits are far outweighed by its costs. FERC’s October 17 order also explained that it found no evidence that CAISO’s treatment of LEAPS was biased by a predetermined conclusion that LEAPS is a generation asset or that storage cannot qualify as transmission. FERC went on to note that a project’s ability to provide transmission benefits does not equate to a transmission need, nor does it guarantee eligibility to recover costs through transmission rates.