By Hudson Sangree
Responding to a ruling from a federal appeals court, FERC last week instructed Pacific Gas and Electric and the California Public Utilities Commission to brief it on whether California law allows PG&E to quit CAISO.
The question may be academic; there’s no indication PG&E wants to leave CAISO. But FERC’s ruling on the matter could be worth $30 million a year to the company.
The reason: If PG&E can leave CAISO when it wants, the utility is entitled to continue collecting a 50-basis-point return on equity to remain part of the state’s organized electric market. If it can’t quit, then it could lose its yearly incentive adder.
Ruling in response to a challenge by the PUC, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed FERC in January “to inquire into PG&E’s specific circumstances, i.e., whether it could unilaterally leave the Cal-ISO and thus whether an incentive adder could induce it to remain in the Cal-ISO.”
If PG&E legally must remain part of CAISO, then the company is being paid for something it is already required to do, the panel wrote.
In its Jan. 8 ruling, the appeals court found that FERC had “arbitrarily and capriciously” awarded PG&E the incentive adder without determining whether the company was being incentivized to stay in CAISO, as required by the commission’s regulations. The court remanded the case to FERC to make that determination.
In response, FERC on Monday asked PG&E and the CPUC to brief four issues, including whether California law requires PG&E to participate in CAISO and whether FERC must defer to the PUC’s interpretation of state law (ER14-2529-005).
The controversy over whether PG&E is entitled to the incentive payments has been going on for years.
In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress amended the Federal Power Act to require FERC to provide financial incentives to induce utilities to join RTOs.
FERC responded in 2006 with Order 679, which provided adders to the rate of ROE for utilities that participate in transmission organizations. The bonuses were meant to give utilities an extra reason to join or remain members of RTOs, which are generally voluntary.
The PUC, however, argues that membership in CAISO is mandatory for the state’s three big investor-owned utilities, including PG&E.
PG&E contends participation is voluntary. For staying in CAISO, PG&E has requested and received adders under Order 679 since 2007.
The PUC protested in years past and again in November 2017, saying the $30 million adder was an “unjustified windfall” at the expense of California ratepayers. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District joined the protest.
FERC dismissed the objections, but on appeal the 9th Circuit judges ruled FERC commissioners had abused their authority.
The FERC commissioners, the court said, did not reasonably interpret Order 679 as justifying adders for remaining in a transmission organization. Instead, the commission created a generic adder in violation of the order, the judges ruled.
Order 679 says FERC “will approve, when justified, requests for ROE-based incentives for public utilities that join and/or continue to be a member of” RTOs.
“If all utilities that continued to be members of transmission organizations automatically qualified for incentive adders, the ‘when justified’ language would be surplusage,” the appellate panel wrote.
Briefs from PG&E and the PUC must be submitted to FERC by Sept. 19.