Yesterday, FERC issued an order on a Petition for Declaratory order from Sunrun, asking that FERC waive the QF certification filing requirements for separately-interconnected, individual residential rooftop solar PV systems and related equipment with maximum net power production of 20 kW or less that Sunrun provides financing for but which the homeowner has an option to purchase, where such 20 kW or less systems may aggregate to over 1 MW within a one-mile radius; and…

Stampedes are dangerous. QF stampedes toward stale above-market standard avoided costs rates are dangerous to ratepayers. The first stampede occurred in the 1980s in California. California’s utilities were compelled to offer standard rates to QFs based on gas and oil prices at the time and then very shortly thereafter the bottom fell out of the oil and gas markets. California ratepayers paid for that stampede for decades. Stampedes toward stale avoided cost rates are continuing…

On April 1, 2019, FERC issued deficiency letters to all the ISOs/RTOs that submitted Order No. 841 (Storage Rule) compliance filings: CAISO, ISO-NE, MISO, NYISO, and PJM. Generally such letters ask the RTOs and ISOs to explain in much greater detail how their tariff provisions permit energy storage resources (ESRs) to participate in their markets. It appears that FERC wants each requirement imposed by Order No. 841 to be discussed…

On February 7, 2019, comments were submitted to FERC on the six RTO/ISO Order No. 841 (storage) compliance filings. FERC will need to address several issues regarding energy storage resources (ESRs), which are also distributed energy resources (DERs). This summary does not address issues that apply to all ESRs, such as limits on qualifying for capacity payments, transmission charges being properly excluded, PJM’s 10-hour rule, etc. Rather, it focuses on comments relating to ESRs that are also…

Updating the Year in Review on Legally Enforceable Obligations (LEO), FERC issued an Intent Not to Act on New Mexico Public Regulation Commission’s (NMPRC) LEO standard, which was challenged by a QF’s (Great Divide) Petition for Enforcement under PURPA.  It is not remarkable that FERC decided not to bring an enforcement action against the NMPRC LEO standard, which provides that a QF must demonstrate that it is ready to interconnect and deliver energy before a…

FERC, not surprisingly, has asserted jurisdiction over the “inbound” wholesale distribution service (WDS) required by distributed storage resources that participate in FERC-jurisdictional energy and ancillary service markets (Wholesale Storage DERs). Although FERC has long asserted jurisdiction over WDS, it addressed charging Wholesale Storage DERs several years ago in a case involving Commonwealth Edison and Energy Vault.  There, FERC explained that ComEd may recover the costs of the use of its distribution system by Energy…

The Legally Enforceable Obligation (LEO) concept is a construct of FERC that is used in one of FERC’s avoided cost pricing regulations, i.e., 18 CFR § 292.304(d)(2)(ii).  The date a LEO is formed is the date a QF is entitled to have its avoided cost rate determined, if it so elects.  Through the decades, state utility commissions have adopted a quite broad array of standards for when a QF has established a LEO with…