By Christen Smith

FERC on Wednesday dismissed a second request from Linden VFT to rehear its order denying reconsideration of cost allocations for several PJM cross-seams projects (ER18-614).

The commission said Linden just rehashed its original rehearing request. The company also can’t offer new arguments unless the order it’s protesting changed the outcome of the proceeding, it said.

“The commission has explained that the successive rehearing of an order on rehearing lies only when the order on rehearing modifies the original order’s result in a manner that gives rise to a wholly new objection,” FERC wrote. “If it were otherwise, the commission would be faced with countless successive requests for rehearing as parties raised argument after argument, in search of a winner.”

In June, the commission reaffirmed a July 2018 order that directed PJM and its transmission owners to submit compliance filings regarding cost responsibility assignments for four targeted market efficiency projects (TMEPs) with MISO.

In that order, Linden and Hudson Transmission Partners, each of which operates merchant lines into New York City and had recently converted its firm transmission withdrawal rights to non-firm, were ordered to partially pay for TMEPs b2971, b2973, b2974 and b2975 after FERC said existing Tariff language indicated the congestion benefits accruing to the lines justified subsequent cost responsibility. (See FERC Rejects PJM TMEP Rehearing Requests.) PJM TOs then submitted a compliance filing clarifying that TMEP allocations would be assigned to merchant facilities in the future too.

The New York Power Authority joined with Hudson and Linden in opposing the order, arguing that the Tariff “limits all cost allocations … based on their actual firm transmission withdrawal rights.”

In its second rehearing request submitted in July, Linden alone argued that TMEPs are a subset of required transmission enhancements, which carry associated charges that are “not to exceed the firm transmission withdrawal rights specified in the applicable interconnection service agreement.”

Linden also said FERC gave it no notice that it would impose costs once the merchant TO dropped the rights and argued that assigning the company cost responsibility for TMEPs from which it does not benefit conflicts with the commission’s cost-causation principle.