FERC News

Subscribe to FERC News via RSS

On November 19, 2015, FERC issued an order granting rehearing of its prior June 30, 2015 order accepting and suspending tariff records, subject to refund, filed by Alliance Pipeline L.P. (“Alliance”). In the prior order, FERC had set for hearing, among other issues, Alliance’s proposal to eliminate Authorized Overrun Service (“AOS service”) from its Rate Schedule FT-1. In the rehearing order, FERC held that Alliance could not eliminate AOS service from its Rate Schedule FT-1, because it had entered into negotiated agreements that set specific, negotiated rates for AOS service, and hence removal of AOS service from its tariff would violate these negotiated transportation service agreements without justification. FERC held that the Memphis Clause in each of the negotiated transportation service agreements would permit Alliance to modify tariff provisions of general applicability to all shippers where the Commission determined such modification to be just and reasonable, but did not support modifying, without some further justification, rates or services specifically negotiated over and agreed upon in the negotiated transportation service agreements. On the other hand, FERC directed Alliance to eliminate from the GT&C section of its tariff provisions providing that AOS service would have priority over IT service. FERC held that these provisions were both (1) contrary to its policy that overrun service and IT service should have equal priority and (2) not the subject of specific negotiation and agreement in the negotiated transportation service agreements.

On November 24, 2015, the Commission accepted and suspended proposed amendments to PJM Interconnection L.L.C.’s (“PJM”) Open Access Transmission Tariff (“OATT”) that allocated cost responsibility for two transmission upgrades: the Bergen-Linden Corridor Project, and the Artificial Island Project. In suspending the proposed amendments, the Commission ordered staff to convene a technical conference on whether the use of the solution-based distribution factor (“DFAX”) cost allocation methodology results in rates that are just and reasonable when applied to transmission enhancements and expansions that address reliability violations that are not related to flow on the planned transmission facility, as approved by the Commission in Schedule 12 of the PJM OATT for assigning the costs of transmission upgrades.

On November 17, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“Commission”) terminated the proceeding in which it was considering a proposed reporting requirement that would have required quarterly reporting of every natural gas transaction within the Commission’s Natural Gas Act jurisdiction that entails physical delivery for the next day or for the next month.  The Commission decided to terminate based on its determination that the proposed reporting requirement is not necessary at this time.

On November 20, 2015, the Commission amended its regulations to permit the sale of primary frequency response service at market-based rates by sellers with market-based rate authority for sales of energy and capacity.  As defined by the Commission, “primary frequency response service” is “a resource standing by to provide autonomous, pre-programmed changes in output to rapidly arrest large changes in frequency until dispatched resources can take over.”  The Commission clarified that sellers can provide primary frequency response service “irrespective of what specific equipment they may choose to use to make such sales.”

On November 19, 2015, FERC issued an order confirming that certain qualifying facilities (“QFs”) under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (“PURPA”) with market-based rate (“MBR”) authority, generator interconnection facilities, or other jurisdictional assets are exempt from section 203(a)(1) of the Federal Power Act (“FPA”), which requires public utilities to receive Commission authorization before acquiring or disposing of certain jurisdictional facilities.

On November 10, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) granted a motion for a technical conference and request to postpone the comment deadline (“Motion”) that was filed in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Collection of Connected Entity Data from Regional Transmission Organization and Independent System Operators (“NOPR”) that the FERC issued on September 17, 2015 (see September 21, 2015 edition of the WER). The FERC directed staff to convene a technical conference on December 8, 2015 and postponed the due date for comments on the NOPR until January 22, 2016.

On November 4, 2015, FERC issued an order conditionally accepting the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) compliance filings articulating its Reliability Assurance Initiative (“RAI”) concepts and programs, and providing details on NERC’s oversight and evaluation of the RAI program (“November Order”).  FERC’s acceptance is conditioned upon NERC providing additional information in its annual report on RAI and making an additional compliance filing to modify its Rules of Procedure within 120 days of the November Order.

On November 5, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued two orders, each of which clarified implementation of FERC’s gas-electric coordination rules adopted in FERC Order No. 787. In proceedings related to PJM’s and NYISO’s implementation of Order No. 787, National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation (“NFG Distribution”) sought clarification regarding its ability to communicate with third parties to seek operational changes in natural gas transportation or consumption so long as it did not reveal non-public information received from PJM or NYISO.  FERC granted NFG Distribution’s requests for clarification in both proceedings.

On November 5, 2015, FERC issued an order accepting four non-conforming and negotiated rate agreements, subject to conditions, between Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC (“Columbia”) and New Jersey Natural Gas Company (“NJNG”), South Jersey Gas Company (“SJ Gas”), and South Jersey Resources Group (“SJ Resources”).  In the order, FERC found that two provisions in the agreements were permissible material deviations from Columbia’s pro forma agreement either because they had been offered to all anchor shippers or because they did not provide certain shippers with a different quality of service or adversely affect other shippers.  However, FERC held two material deviations to be impermissible because they conferred “valuable rights” and were not offered to other anchor shippers.

On October 14, 2015, FERC issued an order (“October 14 Order”) denying rehearing and stay of its December 18, 2014 order (“December 18 Order”) authorizing Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC (“Columbia”) to construct and operate its East Side Expansion Project and abandon facilities that will be replaced as part of the project.  In the October 14 Order, FERC found that it had fully addressed environmental issues raised by the Clean Air Council and the Allegheny Defense Project (“Allegheny”) in its environmental assessment (“EA”) and the December 18 Order.