On April 17, 2020, FERC granted the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) request to defer implementing several Commission-approved Reliability Standards that have effective dates or phased-in implementation dates in the second half of 2020. NERC argued the deferred implementation would not hamper grid reliability but would instead allow NERC-registered entities additional flexibility to continue prioritizing worker safety and reliability during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Continue Reading FERC Defers Implementation of Certain NERC Reliability Standards, Citing COVID-19

On April 7, 2020, FERC and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (“NARUC”), the national organization representing state public service commissions, sent a letter to the Federal Reserve supporting a request from the Edison Electric Institute (“EEI”), the American Gas Association and the National Association of Water Companies (together, the “Trade Groups”) to expand access to short-term debt available to the utility industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, as utilities are facing decreasing load and increasing bill nonpayment.
Continue Reading FERC and NARUC Join EEI and Other Trade Groups’ Request to the Federal Reserve to Expand Access to Short-Term Debt During the COVID-19 Crisis

On April 2, 2020, FERC issued several orders aimed at helping regulated entities manage compliance deadlines and related issues in the wake of COVID-19 response.  Chairman Neil Chatterjee also issued a press release confirming the pandemic qualifies as an emergency under the Commission’s rules and detailing additional steps in FERC’s plan to help regulated entities manage potential enforcement and compliance-related burdens during the pandemic, including two new task forces to expedite standards of conduct waiver requests and no-action letters.
Continue Reading FERC Relieves Regulatory Burdens and Creates New Task Forces Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

On March 10, 2020, FERC granted rehearing of its November 9, 2018 order that accepted revisions to ISO New England Inc.’s (“ISO-NE”) Tariff modifying the calculation of the economic life of existing capacity resources seeking to retire or permanently leave the ISO-NE capacity market, to better reflect competitive market behavior. FERC determined the benefits of the Tariff revisions did not outweigh the disruption to capacity market participants’ settled expectations and, therefore rejected the economic life revisions in their entirety, effective August 10, 2018, and declined to rerun any Forward Capacity Auctions (“FCA”) to preserve market certainty.  
Continue Reading FERC Reversal Rejects ISO-NE Proposal for Calculating De-List Bids

On March 6, 2020, FERC rejected ISO New England Inc.’s (“ISO-NE”) and the New England Power Pool Participants Committee’s proposed revisions to the ISO-NE Tariff intended to eliminate ISO-NE’s ability to retain a resource for local transmission reliability needs if that resource has been previously retained for fuel security purposes (“Proposed Tariff Revisions”). FERC found that the Tariff Revisions were not just and reasonable because they would limit ISO-NE’s ability to address potential future transmission reliability issues without alternative transmission solutions yet being in place.
Continue Reading FERC Rejects ISO-NE Tariff Revisions Preventing Further Retention of Retained Fuel Security Resources

On February 12, 2020, the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) issued a notice stating that it will investigate and report on the potential economic effects of renewable energy commitments, including the role of renewable energy imports, in Massachusetts and the broader New England region as requested by the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives (“Committee”). The ITC intends to send the report to the Committee by January 25, 2021.
Continue Reading U.S. International Trade Commission to Investigate Impacts of Renewable Energy Imports in New England

On February 14, 2020, FERC rejected ISO New England Inc.’s (“ISO-NE”) and the New England Power Pool Participants Committee’s (together with ISO-NE, the “Filing Parties”) proposed revisions to the ISO-NE tariff intended to allow for the termination of ISO-NE’s Fuel Security Reliability Retention Mechanism (“Fuel Security Mechanism”) at the end of Forward Capacity Auction (“FCA”) 14 – one year earlier than currently provided in the tariff. The Fuel Security Mechanism allows ISO-NE to retain resources for fuel security that seek to retire in FCAs 13, 14, or 15 and was initially implemented following ISO-NE’s 2018 petition for waiver seeking to retain two retiring Mystic Units through FCA 15 (“Mystic Units”). FERC rejected the filing because ISO-NE had not yet submitted its proposed long-term solutions to address fuel security concerns and because it found that that ISO-NE’s proposed interim solutions were inadequate. FERC Commissioner Richard Glick dissented from the order, arguing the majority lacked a reasoned basis to find that ISO-NE’s filing was not just and reasonable.
Continue Reading FERC Rejects ISO-NE’s Proposed Early Sunsetting Revisions to Fuel Security Mechanism

On February 20, 2020, FERC issued a notice of inquiry (“NOI”) to learn more about the potential benefits and risks of virtualization and cloud computing services in the bulk electric system operations. The NOI also seeks information about the barriers that exist in FERC-approved Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) Reliability Standards that impede the voluntary adoption of virtualization or cloud computing services.
Continue Reading FERC Opens Inquiry into Virtualization and Cloud Computing Services

On January 30, 2020, FERC accepted revisions to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) planning resource auction participation rules for resources expecting extended outages during the planning year.  FERC simultaneously dismissed as moot an earlier-filed complaint by Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative (“Wolverine”) that alleged MISO’s Open Access Transmission, Energy and Operating Reserves Markets Tariff (“Tariff”) was unjust and unreasonable because it allowed resources with MISO-approved outages for the entire planning year to participate in the resource auction.
Continue Reading FERC Accepts MISO Planning Resource Auction Changes and Dismisses Related Complaint as Moot

On January 9, 2020, FERC rejected Constellation Mystic Power, LLC’s (“Mystic”) proposed amendment to its cost-of-service agreement (“Mystic Agreement”) with ISO New England Inc. (“ISO-NE”) that would have provided Mystic the option to unilaterally retire Mystic Generating Station units 8 and 9 (“Mystic Generators”).  FERC found that giving Mystic the option to retire the Mystic Generators early would pose an unacceptable risk to reliability.  Commissioner Glick concurred in part and dissented in part.
Continue Reading FERC Rejects Proposed Unilateral Termination Amendment Related to Mystic Generators