On May 9, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) dismissed Otsego 2000 Inc.’s (“Otsego”) petition to set aside a FERC order granting a certificate to Dominion Energy Transmission Inc. (“Dominion”) to construct and operate its New Market Project (“Project”).  Specifically, the D.C. Circuit found that Otsego failed to demonstrate standing to petition the court and that Otsego’s expenditure of resources for litigation was insufficient to demonstrate standing.

As part of its overall proposal to implement carbon pricing to incorporate the social cost of carbon emissions in the wholesale power market, New York Independent System Operator, Inc. (“NYISO”) staff made a presentation at the Market Issues Working Group (“MIWG”) meeting on April 30, 2019 (“MIWG Presentation”).  The MIWG Presentation set forth NYISO’s proposed methodology to calculate the estimated impact of carbon pricing on locational-based marginal prices (“LBMP”).  Specifically, the MIWG Presentation provides additional details about how NYISO proposes to calculate the location-based marginal price-carbon (“LBMPc”), which would consider the impact of carbon pricing on LBMPs for purposes of subtracting from an energy supplier’s ultimate bid during the market settlement phase.

On May 1, 2019, FERC denied Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (“PG&E”) requests for rehearing of two prior orders in which FERC held that it and the bankruptcy courts have concurrent jurisdiction to review and address the disposition of wholesale power contracts sought to be rejected through bankruptcy.  FERC’s order comes as the PG&E bankruptcy proceedings in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California (“Bankruptcy Court”) remain ongoing.  The May 1 order affirmed FERC’s earlier conclusions in response to petitions from NextEra Energy, Inc./NextEra Energy Partners and Exelon Corporation that a party to a FERC-jurisdictional wholesale power contract must obtain approval from both the bankruptcy court and FERC to reject a contract and to modify the filed rate, respectively (see January 30, 2019 edition of the WER).  FERC clarified that rendering a determination on rejection motions was solely within the bankruptcy court’s province, but also made clear that rejection would not relieve PG&E of its separate regulatory obligations under the Federal Power Act.  The order may provide comfort to the Bankruptcy Court, which expressed concern over its exclusive authority to approve a rejection at an April 10 hearing.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) released an update (“2018 Update”) to its 2017 U.S. Hydropower Market Report (“2017 Report”).  The 2018 Update provides a status report on the U.S. hydropower industry as of the end of 2018, and includes publicly available data and information on existing U.S. hydropower facilities, including trends on capacity, generation, and new investment.

On April 29, 2019, FERC accepted revisions proposed by PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) to its Open Access Transmission Tariff (“Tariff”) and Amended and Restated Operating Agreement (“Operating Agreement”) to allow market participants to submit day-ahead offers that vary by hour and to update such offers in real time (“April Order”).  FERC also denied PJM’s motion for clarification as to whether PJM’s Independent Market Monitor (“IMM”) may file certain complaints against PJM.

On April 17, 2019, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) in which it proposed to approve, pending certain modifications, Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) Reliability Standard CIP-012-1 (“Proposed Reliability Standard”), as submitted by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”).  The Proposed Reliability Standard is designed to mitigate cybersecurity risks associated with communications between bulk electric system control centers.  While FERC found that the Proposed Reliability Standard largely met FERC’s directive set forth in Order No. 822, FERC stated that the Proposed Reliability Standard did not address all of its concerns, and thus proposed to direct NERC to modify the Proposed Reliability Standard.

On April 23, 2019 FERC granted in part and denied in part a rehearing request (“Rehearing Order”) filed by American Municipal Power Inc. (“AMP”) of FERC’s February 5, 2018 order (“February 5 Order”) accepting PJM Interconnection, L.L.C.’s (“PJM”) revisions to amend its Open Access Transmission Tariff (“Tariff”) and Amended and Restated Operating Agreement (“Operating Agreement”) to improve the process for adding a pseudo-tied resource into the PJM region.  As part of this process, PJM proposed to incorporate two pro forma pseudo-tie agreements and a pro forma system modification reimbursement agreement (“Reimbursement Agreement”).  In the Rehearing Order, FERC granted AMP’s request on rehearing that the indemnification provisions of the Reimbursement Agreement should be consistent with related provisions in the pro forma pseudo-tie agreements.  FERC denied rehearing with respect to the compensation provision and the suspension and termination provisions in the pro forma pseudo-tie agreements.

On April 23, 2019, FERC denied Flint Riverkeeper’s and Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s (“Riverkeepers”) request for attorney’s fees after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) vacated the certificates of public convenience and necessity (“CPCNs”) FERC issued for the Southeast Market Pipelines Project (see March 20, 2018 edition of the WER).  In doing so, FERC found, among other things, that the certificate proceeding at FERC did not qualify as an “adversary proceeding” under the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”) for which the Riverkeepers could seek attorney’s fees because: (1) certificate proceedings are excluded from the definition of “adversary proceeding” and (2) FERC is not represented by counsel in a certificate proceeding but rather acts as an adjudicator.

On April 18, 2019, FERC granted Sunrun, Inc.’s petition for declaratory order and request for waiver of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (“PURPA”) Qualified Facility (“QF”) certification requirements for certain of its residential solar photovoltaic (“PV”) systems.  Specifically, FERC granted Sunrun limited waivers of: (1) the QF certification requirement for Sunrun-financed residential rooftop solar PV systems under 20 kW where such systems, though separately interconnected, may aggregate to over 1 MW within a one-mile radius; and (2) the requirement in Item 8a of the QF self-certification Form No. 556 to identify related PV systems of 20 kW or less located within a one mile radius.  FERC’s order noted its intention to ease administrative burdens on both Sunrun and itself, and affirmed that certain certification filing exemptions available to QFs under 1 MW can persist as Sunrun expands and its financed PV systems aggregate to over 1 MW within a one-mile radius.

On April 18, 2019, FERC found that the fast-start pricing practices of New York Independent System Operator, Inc. (“NYISO”) and PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) were unjust and unreasonable and directed NYISO and PJM to revise their tariffs to implement certain changes discussed in the orders (“2019 Orders”).  In doing so, FERC found that NYISO’s and PJM’s current fast-start tariff provisions do not allow prices to reflect the marginal cost of serving load.