On January 24, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) issued an order (“January 24 Order”) denying requests for rehearing of their December 17, 2009 order (“December 17 Order”) which authorized the Secretary of the Commission (“Secretary”) to issue a document entitled Staff’s Preliminary Notice of Violations. 

On January 12, 2011, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) released a report entitled “Electricity Grid Modernization: Progress Being Made on Cybersecurity Guidelines, but Key Challenges Remain to be Addressed” (the “Report”).  This Report highlighted key issues which could cause concern for the smart grid system and identified regulatory problems affecting smart grid cybersecurity standards.

On January 20, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) posted a report  by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (“LBNL”) called “Use of Frequency Response Metric to Assess the Planning and Operating Requirements for Reliable Integration of Variable Renewable Generation” along with its five supplementary papers (together, the “Report”). 

On January 20, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) conditionally approved the Violation Risk Factors (“VRF”) and Violations Severity Levels (“VSL”) for version 2 and 3 of the Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) reliability standards.  The CIP standards encompass many security concerns including sabotage reporting and cyber security.

On January 10, 2011, the five current Commissioners at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) sent a joint letter (the “January 10th Letter”) to the Wall Street Journal (the “Journal”) in response to a December 30, 2010 editorial called “The Midwest Wind Surtax” (the “December 30th Editorial”).

On December 30, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) issued two separate but related orders (the “December 30, 2010 Orders”) on transmission rate incentives under sections 205 and 219 of the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) and Order No. 679. 

On December 16, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) approved the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc.’s (“Midwest ISO”) proposal to socialize costs for the entire region.