On February 20, 2020, FERC staff issued a letter to the licensee for the FERC-licensed Anderson Dam Project (“Project”), directing the licensee to immediately initiate a full drawdown of the Project’s reservoir by October 1, 2020. The Project is located south of San Francisco and serves as an important water supply resource, but has long been identified as vulnerable to flooding and seismic events that could result in the catastrophic spilling of floodwaters into Silicon Valley.  As such, the licensee has been operating the Project at a restricted reservoir level (as low as 58% of capacity in 2020) to mitigate flooding and seismic risks.

I. Summary of NOPR

On March 19, 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) proposing to revise its electric transmission incentive policy under Federal Power Act (FPA) Section 219[1] “to stimulate the development of transmission infrastructure needed to support the nation’s evolving generation resource mix, technological innovation and shifts in load patterns.”[2] FERC’s NOPR includes a number of changes to its transmission incentives policy and seeks comment from industry participants.

FERC’s NOPR proposes to shift the focus in granting transmission incentives from an approach based on the risks and challenges faced by a project to an approach based on economic and reliability benefits to consumers.

The NOPR intends to replace the current policy of limiting incentives to the base rate of return on equity (ROE) zone of reasonableness with a 250-basis-point cap on total ROE incentives. The NOPR proposes that transmission providers should be allowed to seek removal of the ROE zone-of-reasonableness restrictions placed on previously-granted incentives and to replace them with the hard cap.

FERC proposes to increase the ROE incentive for joining and remaining a member of a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO), an Independent System Operator (ISO) or other Commission-approved transmission organization (collectively hereinafter, “RTO”) from 50 basis points to 100 basis points, and to make the incentive available regardless of whether such participation is voluntary.

The NOPR also offers a 50-basis-point ROE incentive for transmission projects that meet a pre-construction benefit-to-cost ratio in the top 25 percent of projects examined over a sample period, and an additional 50 basis points for projects that meet a post-construction benefit-to-cost ratio in the top 10 percent of projects studied over the same sample period.

FERC further proposes a 100-basis-point ROE incentive for transmission technologies that enhance reliability, efficiency and capacity, as well as improve the operation of new or existing transmission facilities. The NOPR also proposes an incentive of up to 50 basis points for projects that demonstrate reliability benefits by providing a quantitative analysis, where possible, or a qualitative analysis.

Finally, FERC plans to retain several existing non-ROE incentives, including those related to Construction Work In Progress (CWIP), hypothetical capital structure, accelerated depreciation for rate recovery, and regulatory asset treatment, that remain vital in removing regulatory barriers and other impediments to transmission investment.

Commissioner Richard Glick dissented in part from the NOPR.

The NOPR seeks comment on these proposed reforms 90 days from the date of its publication in the Federal Register.

On March 19, 2020, FERC granted Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (“PG&E”), licensee for the Kilarc-Cow Creek Hydroelectric, Project No. 606 (“Project”), request for a Declaratory Order finding that the California State Water Resources Control Board (“California Board”) waived its authority to issue a water quality certification under section 401 of the Clean Water Act.  FERC’s recent opinion continues its application of the D.C. Circuit’s opinion in Hoopa Valley Tribe (see December 11, 2019 edition of the WER), which held that section 401 provides one year as the absolute maximum for a state to act on a water quality certification application and rejected an extension of the statutory deadline via a coordinated withdrawal-and-resubmission scheme between an applicant and the state certifying agency.

On Thursday, March 19, in lieu of its monthly Commission meeting, FERC issued a Notice regarding its response to the Novel Coronavirus Disease (“COVID-19”) and the President’s March 13 declaration of a National Emergency.  Chairman Neil Chatterjee delivered comments about the Notice and the Commission’s operations in the coming weeks and months.

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.  

On March 10, 2020, FERC accepted and suspended Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc.’s (“MISO”) proposal to allow for the selection of a storage facility as a transmission-only asset (“SATOA”) in the MISO Transmission Expansion Plan (“MTEP”). FERC found that MISO failed to demonstrate that the proposal was just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory, and directed staff to convene a technical conference to explore issues including:

  1. Evaluation and selection criteria for a SATOA in the MTEP;
  2. Permitted market activities for SATOAs and potential wholesale market impacts;
  3. How MISO’s current formula rate structure accommodates cost recovery for SATOAs;
  4. A SATOA’s potential impact on MISO’s generator interconnection queue; and
  5. Operating guidelines that will apply to a SATOA.

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.

On February 27, 2020, FERC granted Southwest Power Pool, Inc.’s (“SPP”) request to further delay implementation of reforms designed to facilitate energy storage resource (“ESR”) participation in SPP’s markets. SPP requested the deferral in December 2019, explaining that it would not be able to implement its ESR participation model as scheduled due to ongoing delays in the development of a new market and transmission settlement system and software changes associated with FERC’s Order No. 841 reforms. FERC accepted SPP’s deferral request and ordered a new, August 5, 2021 effective date for SPP’s underlying Order No. 841 tariff changes. Commissioner Bernard McNamee issued a separate opinion concurring with FERC’s order.

On March 4, 2020, FERC denied rehearing of its prior order rejecting the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities’ (“NJBPU”) complaint alleging unjust and unreasonable cost allocations for the Bergen-Linden Corridor transmission project (“BLC Project”). FERC found that it had already fully addressed the issues raised in the original complaint and that there was no need for an evidentiary hearing to evaluate disputed facts related to the BLC Project.