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On September 20, 2013, Clearwater Paper Corporation (“Clearwater”) filed with FERC a petition for enforcement pursuant to section 210(H) of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (“PURPA”) against the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (“Idaho PUC”).  The petition alleges that the Idaho PUC impermissibly moved to allocate, without compensation to a Qualifying Facility (“QF”), one half of all Renewable Energy Credits (“RECs”) created through that facility’s PURPA QF contracts within Idaho to the utility purchasing the QF’s power under a PURPA contract.

On September 19, 2013, FERC issued Order No. 764-B, further clarifying its Integration of Variable Energy Resources (“VER”) rule originally established in Order No. 764.  Powerex Corporation (“Powerex”) and Iberdrola Renewables, LLC (“Iberdrola Renewables”) had sought clarification, or in the alternative rehearing, of issues related to e-Tagging and the Bonneville Power Administration’s (“Bonneville”) practice of curtailments pursuant to its Dispatcher Standing Order (“DSO”) 216 protocol. 

On September 12, 2013, FERC issued an order (“September 12 Order”) granting in part and denying in part requests for clarification filed by Puget Sound Energy, Inc. (“Puget”) and Powerex Corporation (“Powerex”) of a May 20, 2013 order (“May 20 Order”) accepting for filing certain non-conforming service agreements for conditional firm point-to-point transmission service executed between Puget and Morgan Stanley Capital Group, Inc. (“Morgan Stanley”).

On Thursday, September 5, 2013, FERC granted eBay Inc. (“eBay”) market-based rate authority, effective August 26, 2013.  eBay is developing an approximately 6 MW fuel cell generation facility at its South Jordan, Utah data center.  While the facility will primarily be used to provide onsite power for the data center, eBay sought blanket authority to sell any excess energy that is produced.

On September 3, 2013, FERC approved proposed revisions by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) to simplify its process for exempting companies from compliance with Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) reliability standards.  According to NERC, the new process will operate more efficiently by streamlining the processes for submission, review, acceptance or rejection, and modification of previously accepted Technical Feasibility Exceptions (“TFE”).

On Monday, August 29, 2013 FERC issued three civil penalty orders after concluding that three separate entities manipulated ISO New England, Inc.’s (“ISO-NE”) Day-Ahead Load Response Program (“DALRP”).  Specifically, FERC found that Lincoln Paper and Tissue, LLC (“Lincoln”), Competitive Energy Service, LLC (“CES”), and CES’s managing member Dr. Richard Silkman (“Silkman”) each violated FERC’s Prohibition on Market Manipulation by creating phantom load reductions in order to defraud ISO-NE of demand response payments.

On August 29, 2013, the Department of Energy (“DOE”) issued a request for information (“RFI”), seeking comments on its draft Integrated, Interagency Pre-Application (“IIP”) process.  This IIP process is aimed at establishing a “coordinated series of meetings and other actions” before a federal agency would accept a high-voltage transmission line application or take other action to trigger federal review.

On Thursday, July 18, 2013, FERC issued Order No. 784, the final rule on third-party provision of ancillary services and the accounting and financial reporting for new electric storage facilities (“Final Rule”).  FERC stated that the Final Rule, which will revise its regulations to reform its “Avista” policy, will provide additional rate flexibility for purchasers and sellers of ancillary services and increase transparency and competition in ancillary services markets.  Specifically, FERC has provided new means by which sellers can demonstrate a lack of market power in third-party sales of ancillary services in order to obtain expanded market-based rate authority for sales of such services.

On July 23, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“DC Circuit”) denied energy trader Moussa Kourouma’s challenge to a FERC order that found he violated market behavior rules and ordered him to pay a civil penalty of $50,000.  The DC Circuit rejected Kourouma’s arguments that FERC committed procedural and substantive errors, and instead agreed with FERC’s finding that an evidentiary hearing was unnecessary in this case.

On July 18, 2013, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) to explicitly authorize the sharing of non-public operational information between interstate natural gas pipelines and public electric utilities that own, operate, or control transmission facilities for the sale of electric energy in interstate commerce.  The proposal would revise FERC’s regulations to allow for information sharing that the pipeline or utility deems necessary for the purpose of promoting reliable service and operational planning.