FERC News

Subscribe to FERC News via RSS

On October 7, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) announced that it will hold a Commissioner-led Technical Conference to address the reliability of the Bulk-Power System and emerging issues, including reliability concerns which may arise in complying with Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) regulations, along with tools to address these issues.

On September 30, 2011, Martha Coakley, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and various state officials and commissions from the other New England states (collectively, the “Complainants”) filed a Complaint against Bangor Hydro-Electric Company and the other ISO-New England transmission owners (collectively, “TOs”) and ISO New England Inc  (“ISO-NE”).

On September 27, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) denied a tariff waiver request by the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) concerning planning and cost allocation of network upgrades and a transition period for integrating Entergy Corporation and its operating companies (together “Entergy”).

On September 19, 2011, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) wrote a letter to Federal Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) Chairman Jon Wellinghoff requesting that he clarify the Commission’s plans to address threats to the nation’s bulk power system as a result of the pending Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) regulations.  Senator Murkowski’s September 19th letter builds upon the issues identified in her May 17, 2011 letter, and addresses the August 1, 2011 response of Chairman Wellinghoff.

On September 14, 2011, the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power held a hearing to explore the impact of current and pending EPA utility regulations on electric system reliability.  In a somewhat unusual event, all five members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) testified before the subcommittee about FERC’s role in studying the reliability impact of EPA regulations.

On September 9, 2011, FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) announced they would work together to examine the September 8th power outage that affected more than 1 million customers in Southern California, Arizona and Northern Baja Mexico.  4,300 megawatts (“MW”) of load were lost when a technician removed a voltage-regulating capacitor bank from service in a North Gila, Arizona substation, and a 500kV transmission line from Phoenix into Southern California went out of service.

On September 15, 2011, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) proposing to approve revisions to eight critical infrastructure protection (“CIP”) reliability standards, CIP-002-4 through CIP-009-4, which were developed and submitted to the Commission by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”).