On October 3, 2016, FERC clarified that Order No. 827’s reactive power requirements for newly interconnecting non-synchronous generators do not apply to all existing non-synchronous generators making upgrades that require interconnection requests. FERC further clarified that, instead, transmission providers may propose changes to their tariffs to define “newly interconnecting non-synchronous generators” to include repowering an existing generator. 

On September 26, 2016, the Commission approved revisions to the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“CAISO”) Open Access Transmission Tariff (“Tariff”) that create a new product in the CAISO real-time market for “flexible ramping”—meaning a generation resource’s ability to rapidly change its output, upward or downward, to respond to a change in forecasted net load. While the Commission approved the new product, which will replace CAISO’s existing “flexible ramping constraint,” effective October 1, 2016, the CAISO subsequently requested on September 28, 2016 that the Commission suspend the effectiveness of the Tariff revisions for one month, until November 1, 2016. That request remains pending before the Commission.

On September 27, 2016, FERC issued an order denying a request for a limited tariff waiver filed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator Inc. (“MISO”). MISO filed its request to waive certain eligibility requirements for participation in MISO’s price volatility make-whole payment program as part of an attempt to compensate Entergy Arkansas, Inc. (“Entergy Arkansas”) for insufficient revenue returns following several manual re-dispatches of two Entergy Arkansas nuclear units in 2014. In its order, FERC rejected MISO’s request, indicating that generators are ineligible for the program when their units do not meet the flexibility requirements, and that waiver of such requirements was not appropriate in this case.

On September 26, 2016, FERC approved a settlement between FERC’s Office of Enforcement (“Enforcement”) and Maxim Power Corp. (“Maxim”), Maxim Power (USA), Inc., Maxim Power (USA) Holding Company Inc., Pawtucket Power Holding Company, LLC, and Pittsfield Generating Company, LP (“Pittsfield”; collectively, the “Respondents”) requiring Maxim to make a disgorgement payment of $4 million to ISO New England Inc. (“ISO-NE”) and a civil monetary payment of $4 million. The settlement resolves FERC’s petition to enforce penalties against Maxim for market manipulation based on misrepresentation of fuel prices in the District Court of Massachusetts (the “District Court”), which had ordered the parties to participate in a full civil trial, as well as Enforcement’s separate non-public investigation into Maxim for market manipulation based on falsely inflating its recurring Energy charge (the “Investigation”).

On September 26, 2016, FERC issued an order denying the Louisiana Public Service Commission’s (“LPSC”) request for rehearing (“Order Denying Rehearing”) of an April 29, 2016 order on remand from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“DC Circuit”), in which FERC clarified and distinguished its approach to refunds in cost allocation and rate design cases from its approach to refunds in cases of utility over-recovery (“April 29 Order”). As a result of the Order Denying Rehearing, Entergy Services, Inc. and its subsidiary operating companies (collectively, “Entergy”) will not be required to pay refunds for certain cost allocations that FERC has previously determined to be unjust and unreasonable.

On September 22, 2016, FERC issued a notice seeking comments on proposed revisions and clarifications of Electric Quarterly Report (“EQR”) reporting requirements and corresponding updates to the EQR Data Dictionary. Notably, FERC proposes to significantly expand the instances in which transmission providers must report ancillary services transaction data. FERC also proposes to require filers to submit certain tariff-related information that they submit in the e-Tariff system, require filers to submit time zone information in connection with transmission capacity reassignment transactions, and clarify how filers should report booked out transactions.