On October 8, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) issued an order (the “Order”) modifying the energy price cap on spot market sales in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (“WECC”) to $750/MWh. 

On the heels of receiving dozens of submissions in response to the Midwest Independent System Operator, Inc.’s (“MISO”) “MVP” cost allocation filing, (see July 23, 2010 edition of the WER) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) this week received well over one hundred submissions in response to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) on transmission planning and cost allocation (see June 18, 2010 edition of the WER). Interestingly, FERC also issued a Notice indicating that reply comments in the NOPR docket would not be due until November 12, 2010, which indicates that agency action on the NOPR is highly unlikely before the end of the year.

On September 17, 2010, FERC accepted proposed revisions to PJM Interconnection, L.L.C.’s (“PJM”) Operating Agreement, and Attachment K to their open access transmission tariff (“Tariff”).  The changes represented a “temporary solution” to prevent alleged manipulation in PJM’s energy markets.  The September filings were preceded by a lengthy history, as summarized below.

On September 23, 2010, FERC settled with RRI Energy, Inc. and RRI Energy Wholesale Generation LLC (collectively “RRI”) over open access transportation violations, and RRI agreed to pay a civil penalty of $750,000. The settlement concluded an investigation by FERC Enforcement that identified potential violations from January 2000 to March 2008.

On September 22, 2010, the New York Independent System Operator (“NYISO”) released its 2010 reliability needs assessment (“RNA”) which was approved by the Board of Directors.  This is the fifth RNA NYISO has released since 2004, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) approved NYISO’s Comprehensive System Planning Process.

On September 20, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) issued a Final Rule, Promoting a Competitive Market for Capacity Reassignment.  This Order No. 739 lifts the price cap for all electric transmission customers reassigning transmission capacity, and the new rule is an attempt to develop a market for capacity reassignment in lieu of direct acquisitions of capacity from a transmission owner. 

On September 16, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) issued two orders denying rehearing requests for Tres Amigas LLC’s (“Tres Amigas”) transmission project.  FERC denied the request for rehearing of the order where the Commission refused to disclaim jurisdiction over Electric Reliability Council of Texas (“ERCOT”) if it connected with the Tres Amigas Project.  Also, FERC denied the rehearing request of the order that conditionally approved the negotiated rate authority for transmission service at the Tres Amigas Superstation facility.