Electricity

The FERC approved a final rule that will enable distributed energy resource (DER) aggregators to compete in organized wholesale electricity markets.  DERs are located on the distribution system or behind the customer meter and include electric storage resources, intermittent generation, distributed generation, demand response, energy efficiency, thermal storage, and electric vehicles and their charging equipment.  Aggregators will now be able to aggregate multiple small DERs as a single resource to compete in the markets, smoothing the way for many more of such resources to enter the wholesale market.
Continue Reading FERC Opens Electricity Markets to Distributed Resource Aggregators

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved tariff terms for a Regional Transmission Operator (RTO) to treat electric storage resources as transmission facilities under certain circumstances.  Previously, FERC approved only one case-specific proposal to treat storage as transmission.  Treatment as a transmission facility provides additional deployment opportunities for storage resources and allows cost recovery through cost-of service transmission rates instead of relying entirely on energy market revenues.  Commissioner James Danly, however, dissented from the tariff order, preferring to maintain the bright line between generation and transmission previously established by FERC.
Continue Reading Electric Storage May Be Treated as Transmission

The FERC recently issued a final rule (Order No. 872) revising its regulations implementing the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), which encourages the development of certain renewable and cogeneration facilities.  PURPA, and FERC’s rules implementing it, establish benefits to those facilities by obligating electric utilities to purchase electricity from them.  As discussed in a prior post to this blog, FERC considered reforming its regulations due in part to changes in the electric power industry over the last several decades.
Continue Reading FERC Revises PURPA Rules

State regulation of net metering may be a thing of the past if a recent petition filed by the New England Ratepayers Association (“NERA”) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) is granted.  NERA’s petition requests that FERC (1) find that there is exclusive federal jurisdiction over wholesale energy sales from generation sources located on the customer side of the retail meter (such as rooftop solar facilities), and (2) order that the rates for such sales be priced in accordance with the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (“PURPA”) or the Federal Power Act (“FPA”), as applicable.
Continue Reading A Sale Is A Sale: NERA Asks FERC To Regulate Net-Metering

As described in an earlier post to this blog, the Commerce Department initiated an investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 into whether “laminations for stacked cores for incorporation into transformers, stacked and wound cores for incorporation into transformers, electrical transformers, and transformer regulators are being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security.”
Continue Reading National Security Tariff Investigation of Steel-Based Components of Electrical Transformers: Comment Dates Set

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has announced two conferences to address issues raised by the increasing deployment of electric storage resources and their use in electricity markets.  One conference will address a proposal by a Regional Transmission Operator (RTO) to treat an electric storage facility as a transmission-only resource if it can resolve specific transmission issues.  The second conference will discuss issues raised by hybrid resources, i.e., a storage resources paired with a generation resources.  These conferences should be of interest to a wide range of electricity market participants, including utilities, generation companies, customers and investors in storage and other electricity resources.
Continue Reading FERC Conferences to Address Electric Storage Issues

Electronic devices and their components marketed in the European Union and European Economic Area are subject to a morass of environmental and product safety requirements that is only likely to increase with the EU’s implementation of its Circular Economy Strategy in the near future.  The requirements apply to all types of equipment, from sophisticated information technology equipment, to military equipment, aircraft components, electronic medical devices, household electronics, consumer devices, and industrial tools.
Continue Reading Environmental and Safety Requirements Affecting the Marketing of Electronic Devices and their Components in the European Union and European Economic Area

The European Commission (“Commission”) has published a Recommendation on cybersecurity in the energy sector (“Recommendation”).  The Recommendation builds on recent EU legislation in this area, including the NIS Directive and EU Cybersecurity Act (see our posts here and here).  It sets out guidance to achieve a higher level of cybersecurity taking into account specific characteristics of the energy sector, including the use of legacy technology and interdependent systems across borders.

This Recommendation sets out the main issues related to cybersecurity in the energy sector and identifies actions to enhance cybersecurity preparedness.  The Commission calls on Member States to encourage industry stakeholders to build up knowledge and skills related to cybersecurity and, where appropriate, to include these considerations into their national cybersecurity framework (e.g., through strategies, laws, regulations and other administrative provisions).
Continue Reading EU Commission Issues Recommendation on Cybersecurity in the Energy Sector

Carbon pricing is seen by many as an effective means of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity generation.  California and several Eastern states have enacted “cap and trade” emission allowance programs, which have forced generators in those states to pay a price for their CO2 emissions.  With the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan not being implemented, there is currently no federal policy in place that would result in carbon pricing for electricity.  In a singular proposal, acting without any state or congressional mandate, but with the support of State regulatory agencies, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) proposes to require carbon pricing for all power sold in New York State through the NYISO wholesale electricity market.  For the first time, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will be called upon to decide whether and how carbon pricing may be incorporated into wholesale electricity market tariffs solely under the authority of the Federal Power Act.

The NYISO carbon pricing proposal must be fully developed and vetted through a stakeholder process that could take one to two years to reach consensus on a tariff amendment that would be submitted to FERC for review and approval.  This stakeholder process and the subsequent FERC proceeding will grapple with complex issues of electricity market design and novel jurisdictional and policy issues.  The outcome of this process could lead to a push for the adoption of carbon pricing in other FERC-regulated organized regional electricity markets throughout the nation.
Continue Reading New York Proposes Innovative Carbon Pricing for Electricity