Qualifying facility interconnection conversions can be an effective way to bypass the interconnection queue, even during a repower. But there are groundrules to a conversion, and today FERC applied those rules and determined that qualifying facility owners may not be entitled to as much converted capacity as they might think.
Continue Reading Qualifying Facility Conversions – It’s What All the Kids Are Talking About
DEADLINE For Generators on Bonneville Power’s System
For those companies owning generation on the Bonneville Power Administration system, mark your calendars for March 15, 2014. That’s the day by which you must submit your facility displacement costs for Bonneville’s implementation of its Oversupply Management Protocol (aka Environmental Redispatch) that provides compensation for certain generator curtailments. The failure to submit facility displacement costs
Raising the Bar For Interconnection In the Southwest Power Pool
Like other Independent System Operators have done before it, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) is back at the drawing board in an effort to further refine its generator interconnection procedures and improve on queue reforms initially put in place in 2009. And also like other ISOs that have continued to tinker with queue reform, SPP
FERC Performs an About-Face in Idaho
In agreeing to dismiss an historic effort to enforce PURPA, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission left a lump of coal for Qualifying Facility wind developers in Idaho. The agreement represents an apparent policy change at FERC, as well as a complete win for the Idaho PUC.
Continue Reading FERC Performs an About-Face in Idaho
Rate Schedules Galore! FERC’s Decision in Chehalis Power Generating, LP
Interconnection customers: be on notice. Your interconnection agreement may not be just a transmission provider service agreement that allows your project to interconnect with the transmission system. It may also be a rate schedule–your rate schedule–that you must file with FERC or suffer the consequences for violating the Federal Power Act.
At
A Big Day at the FERC Open Meeting
Today was a big day for variable energy resources and energy storage at FERC’s open meeting.
Continue Reading A Big Day at the FERC Open Meeting
MATL Dispute Headed Back to District Court
The Montana Supreme Court has reversed a December 2010 district court decision that found that the developers of the Montana-Alberta Tie Line merchant transmission project do not possess eminent domain authority under Montana law and therefore could not take private land from a nonconsenting landowner. In its reversal, the state Supreme Court cited House Bill
Stoel Rives Energy Regulation Report
FERC Clarifies Qualifying Facility Restrictions in Sale/Resale Transactions
On May 19, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") issued an order in Idaho Wind Partners I, LLC, a docket in which wind farm owners in Idaho petitioned FERC for approval of a unique transaction that would both provide eligible Renewable Energy Credits ("RECs") to a utility
FERC Seeks Comments on Regulatory Reforms for Merchant Transmission and Generator Interconnection Capacity
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") is seeking comments from energy industry participants on regulatory reforms that address how FERC should regulate merchant transmission development and generator interconnection (or lead) lines. Specifically, FERC desires comments on how it should balance the requirements of open access transmission and the needs of project developers.
Merchant transmission and generator interconnection issues have caused a surge of contested FERC proceedings in recent years. In 2009, merchant transmission developers, for instance, were granted the ability to place transmission capacity with anchor tenants prior to making capacity available through an open season. The anchor tenant model was a significant shift in merchant transmission regulation, but, to date, merchant transmission developers have struggled to maintain meaningful anchor tenant arrangements. As a result, more recent filings at FERC have pushed the boundaries of the anchor tenant model, and FERC now seeks to determine through public comment how its open access policies could be further changed to incentivize merchant transmission development.
Generator interconnection lines have also been a popular subject at FERC of late—specifically whether and how interconnection line owners should be granted priority rights to interconnection capacity. This issue is particularly relevant for renewable energy developers who are planning to build generation projects in phases and will rely on having interconnection capacity available to serve later phases when they come online. To maintain priority over competing interconnection requests, FERC has asked generation developers to show they have established milestones for developing the generation phases that seek priority (and to demonstrate progress toward meeting those milestones). Such filings are generally confidential, and thus interconnection line owners from the outside looking in have not been given much insight into what is required to establish priority. FERC’s precedent on the issue has also created dissimilar treatment of interconnection owners who are affiliated with open access transmission providers.
On March 15, 2011, FERC staff held a technical conference where the invited speakers shared a wide range of opinions on these issues. With respect to merchant transmission, speakers supported (i) creating a new section to the Open Access Transmission Tariff ("OATT") that would specify the rules for developing merchant transmission and the ancillary services obligations of those developers, (ii) placing AC merchant lines under existing incumbent transmission provider OATTs, (iii) allowing more incentives for anchor tenants, and (iv) having FERC back away from regulating these projects in their early stages. Those who spoke about priority to interconnection capacity shared opinions that included (x) requiring interconnection developers to give public notice of their development intentions and allow others to bid on capacity (a "speak now or forever hold your peace" approach), (y) requiring all interconnection owners to develop and maintain an "OATT light"—a pared down version of the full OATT, and (z) advocating for less regulation of interconnection lines altogether. FERC staff also questioned whether and how FERC should regulate transmission service over interconnection facilities that are shared or jointly owned (e.g., through a Joint Ownership Agreement, Shared Facilities Agreement, or Common Facilities Agreement) directly by generation developers, or indirectly through an affiliate that owns and operates an interconnection line.
Written comments on these issues are due to FERC no later than April 21, 2011.
Ninth Circuit Decision Further Dismantles an Already Weakened Federal Transmission Siting Authority
Congress’ experiment with establishing federal siting authority for transmission lines suffered another setback after a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision issued yesterday, February 1, 2011, vacated the Department of Energy’s (“DOE”) 2007 Transmission Congestion Study that had designated national interest electric transmission corridors in mid-Atlantic and Southwestern states. This ruling is the latest of