The New England Power Pool Transmission Committee on May 26 voted to recommend the Participants Committee support ISO-NE’s filing to address rejected portions its FERC Order 845 compliance filing (ER19-1951).
The PC will vote on the issue at its June 4 meeting.
FERC issued Order 845 in 2018 to set pro forma minimum standards for large generator interconnection procedures and agreements. In its March ruling on ISO-NE’s original compliance filing, the commission rejected the RTO’s proposed rules related to the availability of surplus interconnection service (SIS), which allows an affiliate or third party to obtain unused interconnection service from an original customer. That was followed by a May 19 rejection of the RTO’s request for clarification on the issue.
“While ISO-NE’s pleading nominally styles itself as a ‘Motion for Clarification,’ in substance, it is a request for rehearing because, for example, ISO-NE is asking the commission to reconsider the requirement to identify the specific upgrades necessary for surplus interconnection service,” FERC said.
ISO-NE Director of Transmission Strategy and Services Al McBride presented the RTO’s plans regarding the application of SIS in relation to network resource interconnection service, developed in response to stakeholder feedback from the April TC meeting. (See NEPOOL Transmission Committee Briefs: April 28, 2020.)
“Committee members described how arrangements could be made, for example, to identify when the surplus customer would not operate when the original customer needed to operate,” McBride’s presentation noted.
McBride said the ISO-NE has continued to “evolve” its understanding of how co-located resources using SIS can operate in the energy and capacity markets, including when a limiting device is used to limit the overall output of a co-located facility. The RTO is proposing that the original interconnection customer would identify and eventually memorialize in the interconnection agreement the terms of use of the SIS, McBride said.
The RTO is also now proposing to adopt FERC’s Order 845/845-A pro forma language regarding the scope of study for SIS requests, he said.
“They did speak to the scope of study in their response, and I think that essentially constituted feedback to us,” McBride said.
[Note: Although NEPOOL rules prohibit quoting speakers at meetings, those quoted in this article approved their remarks afterward to clarify their presentations.]
Further changes will become effective March 19 if accepted by the commission, with the compliance filing required by July 17.
Settlement with NETOs on PTO Rates
The TC voted to recommend that the PC support ISO-NE Tariff revisions to carry out the settlement agreed to among New England Transmission Owners (NETOs), FERC staff and municipal utilities on pool transmission formula rates (EL16-19).
A FERC administrative law judge on April 22 ordered the hearing in abeyance until early June because of delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On behalf of the NETOs, Eversource Energy’s director of transmission rates and revenue requirements, Lisa Cooper, updated the TC, as she did in April, on the regional network service settlement proceeding initiated by the commission in 2015. The TC discussed the matter in executive session.