FERC last week ordered Ameren Illinois to revise its accounting for some expenses but otherwise rejected the latest round of challenges by Southwestern Electric Cooperative to the utility’s annual formula rate update (ER18-1122).

Southwestern challenged multiple inputs to Ameren’s 2018 formula rate update.

The commission ordered Ameren to make a compliance filing within 30 days:

• Moving expenses associated with responding to formal challenges before a regulatory body into Account 928 and exclude them from the annual transmission revenue requirements (ATRR), “consistent with” the commission’s rehearing order on Southwestern’s 2017 formal challenge (ER17-1198-002). (See Challenge to Ameren Illinois Rate Rejected Again.)
• Moving any expenses related to donations for charitable, social or community welfare programs from Account 566 to Account 426.1 (Donations), which is not included as an input to formula rate. The commission said it could not determine whether Ameren appropriately recorded only transmission-related expenses to Account 566. “To the extent Ameren Illinois is including donations for charitable, social or community welfare purposes as part of its contribution and membership expenses, we require Ameren Illinois to report the specific items and amounts as part of the compliance filing and also remove them and account for this removal in its next true-up,” the commission said.
• Eliminate costs of association membership fees associated with lobbying activities from accounts included in the ATRR.

— Rich Heidorn Jr.