Rulemakings

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On January 24, 2017, FERC issued an order accepting simultaneous transmission import limit (“SIL”) values for the Southwest United States from a group of transmission owners operating in the region. In the Order, FERC noted its intent to use these SIL values in evaluating updated market power analyses for the Southwest region, and also provided guidance for future filers on how the Commission expects SIL studies to be performed and reported.

On January 19, 2017, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) proposing to reform approaches to real-time uplift cost allocation and transparency practices by Regional Transmission Organizations (“RTO”) and Independent System Operators (“ISO”). FERC stated that the proposed reforms to uplift cost allocation should incentivize market participants to schedule sufficient resources to satisfy the system’s real-time needs, thus avoiding RTO’s/ISO’s need to procure additional resources after the day-ahead market has cleared. Meanwhile, FERC stated that the proposed reforms to transparency practices will help market participants understand how prices reflect the actual marginal cost of serving load and the operational constraints of reliably operating the system.

On January 19, 2017, FERC denied a request from Vote Solar Initiative and the Montana Environmental Information Center (collectively, “Vote Solar”) that FERC reconsider a November 1, 2016 order (“November Order”) dismissing Vote Solar’s complaint against the Montana Public Service Commission (“Montana Commission”), alleging that the Montana Commission violated section 210 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (“PURPA”) by altering the state’s framework for solar projects seeking to be qualifying facilities (“QFs”). In requesting reconsideration, Vote Solar alleged that FERC misconstrued its complaint as being a request for enforcement pursuant to PURPA Section 210(h) and that it was instead a request for FERC to use its remedial authority under Federal Power Act (“FPA”) section 309. In denying the request, FERC explained that the broad language of its regulations does not give FERC greater enforcement authority than the operative statute itself. FERC also reiterated the jurisdiction and standing deficiencies inherent in the complaint, and noted that many of Vote Solar’s substantive concerns were addressed in a recently issued Notice of Intent Not to Act and Declaratory Order in a similar challenge brought by a QF against the Montana Commission.

As part of the ongoing legal fallout from the 2000-2001 California energy crisis, on January 9, 2017, FERC issued an order clarifying that, for purposes of that proceeding, “pricing umbrella” evidence is relevant only for contextual purposes and cannot serve as a basis for finding refund liability. In this order, FERC clarified that “pricing umbrella” evidence may be introduced solely for the purposes of providing context for FERC’s consideration, and that such evidence should not constitute the basis for finding refund liability.

On January 11, 2017, the United States House of Representatives (“House”) passed the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017, which would, among other things, end the Chevron doctrine of requiring judicial deference toward administrative agencies with respect to the interpretation of statutes that the agency is charged with administering.

On November 17, 2016, FERC issued a final rule amending and clarifying its regulations to implement provisions of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (the “FAST Act”) regarding the designation, protection, and sharing of Critical Energy/Electric Infrastructure Information (“CEII”). In doing so, FERC established criteria and procedures for the designation of CEII, prohibited unauthorized disclosure of CEII, created sanctions for the unauthorized disclosure of CEII by FERC personnel, and permitted the voluntary sharing of CEII among appropriate entities.

On November 17, 2016, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) in which it proposed to amend its regulations to require each Regional Transmission Organization and Independent System Operator (“RTO/ISO”) to revise its tariff to: (i) establish a participation model consisting of market rules that, recognizing the physical and operational characteristics of electric storage resources, accommodates their participation in organized wholesale electric markets; and (ii) define distributed energy resource aggregators as a type of market participant that can participate in organized wholesale electric markets under the participation model that best accommodates the physical and operational characteristics of its distributed energy resource aggregation. FERC stated that it was taking this action “to remove barriers to the participation of electric storage resources and distributed energy resource aggregations” in RTO/ISO markets, pursuant to its statutory obligation under the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) to ensure that RTO/ISO tariffs are just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential.

On November 17, 2016, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) in which it proposed modifications to its pro forma interconnection agreements that would require new generating facilities to install and enable primary frequency response equipment as a condition of interconnection. FERC explained that the proposed modifications are intended to address industry-wide reliability concerns related to declining frequency response performance.

On May 19, 2016, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in which it proposed to approve Reliability Standard BAL-002-2, Disturbance Control Standard—Contingency Reserve for Recovery from a Balancing Contingency Event (“May 19 NOPR”). In the May 19 NOPR, FERC described BAL-002-2 as designed to ensure that Registered Entities “are able to recover from system contingencies by deploying adequate reserves to return their Area Control Error to defined values and by replacing the capacity and energy lost due to generation or transmission equipment outages.” FERC also proposed in the May 19 NOPR to direct the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) to: (i) modify BAL-002-2 to address concerns related to the possible extension or delay of the periods for Area Control Error recovery and contingency reserve restoration; and (ii) address a reliability “gap” associated with NERC’s proposed definition of “Reportable Balancing Contingency Event.”