As part of its overall proposal to implement carbon pricing to incorporate the social cost of carbon emissions in the wholesale power market, New York Independent System Operator, Inc. (“NYISO”) staff made a presentation at the Market Issues Working Group (“MIWG”) meeting on April 30, 2019 (“MIWG Presentation”).  The MIWG Presentation set forth NYISO’s proposed methodology to calculate the estimated impact of carbon pricing on locational-based marginal prices (“LBMP”).  Specifically, the MIWG Presentation provides additional…

On April 18, 2019, FERC granted Sunrun, Inc.’s petition for declaratory order and request for waiver of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (“PURPA”) Qualified Facility (“QF”) certification requirements for certain of its residential solar photovoltaic (“PV”) systems.  Specifically, FERC granted Sunrun limited waivers of: (1) the QF certification requirement for Sunrun-financed residential rooftop solar PV systems under 20 kW where such systems, though separately interconnected, may aggregate to over 1 MW within a one-mile…

On April 15, 2019, FERC accepted PJM Interconnection, L.L.C.’s (“PJM”) changes to its Variable Resource Requirement (“VRR”) demand curve as well as key cost inputs to the curve, in connection with PJM’s 2019 Base Residual Auction for the 2022/2023 Delivery Year.  While FERC concluded that PJM’s proposal would produce accurate market signals, encourage appropriate capacity investment, and achieve an adequate level of reliability, the decision sparked a dissent from Commissioner Glick, who argued that PJM…

On April 5, 2019, FERC accepted PJM Interconnection, L.L.C.’s (“PJM”) proposed revisions to its Open Access Transmission Tariff (“Tariff”) regarding Incremental Capacity Transfer Rights (“ICTRs”).  ICTRs are created whenever customer-funded upgrades increase transmission import capability into a Locational Deliverability Area (“LDA”) in PJM’s system.  Specifically, PJM proposed: (1) to revise the procedures to determine ICTRs; (2) to limit customers to specifying no more than three LDAs in which to determine ICTRs; and (3) to allow…

On March 29, 2019, FERC released its 2018 staff report on Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) reliability audits (“2018 CIP Report”).  The 2018 CIP Report summarizes new and previously-identified “lessons learned” from CIP audits conducted for fiscal years 2016 through 2018.  The audits evaluated whether certain users, owners, and operators of the Bulk Electric System (“BES”) – generally referred to as “registered entities” – had been complying with the FERC-approved CIP Reliability Standards during the relevant…

On March 21, 2019, the Commission issued a proposed order directing two wind energy generators, Cedar Creek Wind Energy, LLC (“Cedar Creek”) and Cedar Creek II, LLC (“Cedar Creek II”) (collectively the “Cedar Creek Entities”) to provide interconnection and transmission service to a proposed wind project, Mountain Breeze Wind, LLC (“Mountain Breeze”) across jointly-owned interconnection customer facilities (“ICIF”) to the Public Service Company of Colorado (“PSCo”) transmission system.  Although Cedar Creek II sought to dismiss…

On March 21, 2019, the same day FERC issued an inquiry into Return on Equity (“ROE”) policies (see here), FERC also published another Notice of Inquiry (“NOI”) seeking comments on the scope and implementation of its electric transmission incentives policy and regulations.  The NOI covers a broad range of topics from using incentives to encourage new technology integration to unlocking location constrained resources and addressing resiliency concerns.  Initial comments are due 90 days after…