On April 14, 2012, Duke Energy Corporation (“Duke Energy”) and Progress Energy, Inc. (“Progress Energy”) submitted their response to FERC’s April 10, 2012 request for additional information regarding the companies’ proposed merger.

On March 30, 2012, FERC issued an order on remand from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (“7th Circuit”) regarding the appropriate cost allocation methodology for large transmission projects in the PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) region.  FERC reaffirmed its decision to approve PJM’s postage stamp rate that socialized the cost of high-voltage projects to the entire RTO.

On March 30, 2012, FERC conditionally approved a proposal from the Midwest Independent System Operator (“MISO”) to revise its interconnection queue procedures.  The new procedures are designed to address backlogs and late-stage terminations of generation interconnection agreements.  FERC approved the new procedures to take effect on January 1, 2012.

On April 2, 2012, PJM made a filing with FERC proposing to change its Operating Agreement in an effort to align compensation provided to wind generators for “lost opportunity costs” with the compensation currently offered to conventional generating resources.

On April 5, 2012, FERC Staff issued a Notice of Alleged Violations against Barclays Bank PLC (“Barclays”) and individual traders Daniel Brin, Scott Connelly, Karen Levine, and Ryan Smith.

On March 16, 2012, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff spoke at the GreenBiz Energy Group Verge conference.  During a post-speech interview he stated “[t]he traditional utility is either going to have to change or die.”  Wellinghoff noted during the interview that this statement is an attempt to clarify an earlier comment where Wellinghoff categorized utilities as “dinosaurs.”

On March 26, 2012, in an attempt to gain approval of their merger, Duke Energy Corp. (“Duke”) and Progress Energy, Inc. (“Progress”) (together, “Applicants”) filed a revised market power mitigation proposal (“Proposal”) with FERC.

On March 23, 2012, the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“California ISO”) approved its “2011-2012 Transmission Plan” which identifies thirty projects needed to maintain reliability.