On May 4, 2018, FERC approved the joint petition filed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”), Midwest Reliability Organization (“MRO”), and SERC Reliability Corporation (“SERC”) (collectively “Petitioners”) requesting FERC approvals for the dissolution of the Southwest Power Pool Regional Entity (“SPP RE”), and the transfer of the registered entities within the SPP RE footprint to MRO and SERC (“Joint Petition”).

On May 1, 2018, FERC staff held a technical conference on local transmission planning within the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“CAISO”) footprint.  The conference comes at a time when two California utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (“PG&E”) and Southern California Edison Company (“SCE”), have transmission planning issues before the Commission, and also following FERC’s recent order addressing compliance with Order No. 890 in the PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) region (see February 20, 2018 edition of the WER).

On April 30, 2018, the Commission granted the California Independent System Operator Corporation’s (“CAISO”) request for a limited waiver of a specific section of CAISO’s Tariff to allow CAISO to: (1) process out-of-time annual recertifications for certain resources as “Acquired Resources” for the 2018 resource adequacy compliance year, and (2) provide certainty to those resources that their Resource Adequacy Availability Incentive Mechanism (“RAAIM”) exemption for the 2017 resource adequacy compliance year will not be unwound.

On April 27, 2018 (“April 27 Order”), FERC denied a rehearing request of Basin Electric Power Cooperative (“Basin Electric”), Heartland Consumers Power District (“Heartland”), and Missouri River Energy Services (“Missouri River”; collectively, “Rehearing Parties”).  The Rehearing Parties contended that their grandfathered agreement regarding the Missouri Basin Power Project was eligible for carve-out treatment under the Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (“SPP”) Open Access Transmission Tariff (“SPP Tariff”).  In this proceeding, “carve-out treatment” refers to an exemption from congestion charges and marginal losses.  FERC ultimately rejected the rehearing request because it found, among other reasons, that Rehearing Parties are not similarly situated to another party, who had already been given carve-out treatment.

On May 2, 2018, staff from FERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”), and the NERC Regional Entities (the “Joint Study Team”), issued a joint report titled “FERC-NERC-Regional Entity Joint Review of Restoration and Recovery Plans” (“Joint Report”), which evaluated blackstart resources and planning by a representative sample of nine volunteer utilities registered with NERC (the “Participants”).  According to the Joint Report, the Participants verified that they currently have sufficient blackstart resources in their system restoration plans, as well as comprehensive strategies for mitigating against loss of any additional blackstart resources going forward.  The Joint Report also made a number of recommendations for users, owners, or operators of the bulk-power system (“Registered Entities”) and others responsible for system restoration.

On April 25, 2018, FERC approved a Stipulation and Consent Agreement (“Settlement”) between the Office of Enforcement (“OE”) and PSEG Resources & Trade, LLC (“PSEG).  The Settlement resolves an investigation into whether PSEG violated certain sections of the PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) Tariff, Operating Agreement, and FERC’s Market Behavior Rule, when PSEG submitted incorrect cost-based offers into the PJM energy market between 2005 and 2014.  FERC determined that the Settlement was a fair and equitable resolution of the matter, and that the penalty imposed upon PSEG reflected the nature and seriousness of the violations. 

On April 24, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) held that FERC lacks jurisdiction over certain of the City of Clarksville, Tennessee’s (“Clarksville”) interstate sales of natural gas for resale, because the plain language of the Natural Gas Act (“NGA”) excludes sales by municipalities from FERC’s jurisdiction, which extends to interstate sales of natural gas for resale under NGA section 7.

On April 20, 2018, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (“NYSDEC”) denied the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC’s (“Transco”) application (“Application”) for a Water Quality Certification (“WQC”) for the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project (“Project”).  The NYSDEC denied the Application without prejudice, asserting that the Application provided incomplete information upon which to make a determination.  

On April 19, 2018, FERC issued a final rule (“Order No. 844”) addressing transparency in markets operated by Regional Transmission Organizations (“RTOs”) and Independent System Operators (“ISOs”).  FERC required that each RTO/ISO establish in its tariff: requirements to report information about uplift payments for each resource and transmission zone; requirements to report information on each operator-initiated commitment; and the transmission constraint penalty factors used in its market software.  Order No. 844 will become effective 75 days after publication in the Federal Register.

In two orders concurrently issued on April 17, 2018, FERC reaffirmed its jurisdiction over the participation of energy efficiency resources (“EERs”) in wholesale electricity markets and accepted an EER-related tariff filing from PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”).  In one order, FERC denied rehearing and granted clarification of a December 1, 2017 order (“Declaratory Order”) asserting jurisdiction over EERs, rejecting claims that FERC had overstepped its “directly affects” jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act (“FPA”), and in the second order, FERC applied that understanding to find PJM’s proposal to integrate EERs into PJM’s wholesale markets just and reasonable.