FERC issued a flurry of orders Thursday in its last open meeting before September. (The commission does not meet in August.)

The commission:

CAISO

• Ordered additional briefing concerning the calculation of the return on common equity for the DATC Path 15 upgrade to reflect the commission’s revised ROE methodology in Opinions 569 and 569-A. The 84-mile, 500-kV transmission line was built to relieve congestion on the existing Path 15 corridor between northern and southern California (ER17-998-001).
• Upheld the result of its January 2020 order that denied Pacific Gas and Electric’s request to recover 100% of the costs from its abandoned Central Valley Power Connect Project (ER19-2582-001).

ISO-NE

• Rejected a complaint by Liberty Power Holdings alleging that ISO-NE inappropriately refused to correct a $200,000 billing error resulting from Eversource Energy’s reporting to the RTO load for the Smith & Wesson plant in Western Massachusetts that was mistakenly attributed to Liberty. The commission said Liberty waited too long to seek a correction (EL20-27).
• Approved Paper Birch’s request to make wholesale sales of electric energy, capacity and ancillary services at market-based rates in the NYISO and ISO-NE markets. The order said the commission intends to release affiliate information for which Paper Birch requested privileged treatment (ER20-1120).

MISO

• Approved an uncontested settlement on Entergy Arkansas’ tariff revisions to ensure the return of excess accumulated deferred income taxes resulting from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (ER18-1247-001).
• Upheld the result of its November 2019 order denying the Louisiana Public Service Commission’s complaint alleging that Entergy Services’ off-system sales of energy to third-party power marketers and others for the benefit of Entergy Arkansas violated its generation and transmission pooling arrangement (EL19-50-001). (See La. PSC Complaints Denied in Entergy System Disputes.)

NYISO

• Approved in part and denied in part Alcoa Power Generating’s requests for waivers of the requirements for the company’s Tapoco and Long Sault Divisions to have open-access transmission tariffs, maintain an Open Access Same-Time Information System, and comply with the Standards of Conduct and other regulations (ER20-1580).

PJM

• Accepted PJM’s Tariff and Operating Agreement revisions to allow market sellers to submit, and update intraday, hourly differentiated segmented ramp rates in both the day-ahead and real-time energy markets (ER20-1414). (See “Parameter-limited Scheduling Fix,” PJM MRC Briefs: Dec. 19, 2019.)
• Upheld its January 2020 ruling allowing Potomac-Appalachian Highline Transmission to recover certain advertising and public advocacy costs incurred during its efforts to win approval for the canceled PATH project (ER09-1256-006). (See FERC Grants Recovery on PATH Project Costs.)
• Upheld the result of its October 2019 order finding that Dominion Energy Virginia met its burden under Section 205 of the Federal Power Act to show that changing to the 12-coincident-peak transmission cost allocation method is just and reasonable because it is based on Dominion’s transmission planning (ER19-1661-002). (See FERC OKs New Dominion Tx Rate Structure.) (This order had not been posted to the commission’s website as of press time.)
• Ordered hearing and settlement procedures in the North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency’s complaint that Duke Energy Progress’ 11% ROE in the companies’ power supply agreement is excessive. It rejected Duke’s request to dismiss the complaint and set a refund effective date of Oct. 11, 2019 (EL20-4).
• Ordered a paper hearing to determine a reasonable proxy for determining the capital structure and cost of capital for a merchant generator in response to a petition for a declaratory order seeking guidance on the commission’s cost-based methodology for compensating reactive power generators. The petition was filed by Ares EIF Management; Competitive Power Ventures; Invenergy Thermal Development; J-Power USA Development; Panda Power Generation Infrastructure Fund; Tenaska; and Vistra Energy (EL19-70).
• Accepted PSEG Energy Resources & Trade’s tariff revisions to cancel reactive power service tariff records for the Yards Creek Generating Facility. PSEG has proposed selling its 50% interest in the facility, a 420-MW hydro facility in Warren County, N.J. (ER20-1441).
• Ordered hearing and settlement procedures on the continued justness and reasonableness of Constellation Power Source Generation’s reactive supply and voltage control rates (ER17-801-006).

SPP

• Reduced ITC Great Plains’ adder for being an independent transmission company from 100 basis points to 25 in response to a complaint by the Kansas Corporation Commission (EL19-80).