By William Opalka

FERC on Thursday denied a rehearing request from the Long Island Power Authority in a dispute with a power plant developer over interconnection requirements (EL15-84).

The owner of Long Island’s transmission system had requested rehearing of a September 2015 order that granted Caithness Long Island II’s challenge to interconnection requirements that it said would cost “hundreds of millions” in unjust system upgrade costs. (See FERC Sides with Developer in NYISO Dispute.)

The developer of the 750-MW combined cycle plant in Brookhaven filed a complaint last July claiming that NYISO’s application of the Long Island local reliability interface transfer capability test, known as the Long Island Guideline, violates its Tariff and FERC Order 2003. Caithness said its energy resource interconnection request obligated it to meet only NYISO’s Minimum Interconnection Standard, which does not permit a deliverability test.

LIPA argued that the commission’s order erred by not directing NYISO to include the Long Island Guideline in its 2015 Class Year Deliverability Test. LIPA said that Caithness has told the ISO that it intends to seek interconnection as a capacity resource but that without transmission upgrades, the new plant could threaten the deliverability of generation east of Holbrook, N.Y.

“We find that LIPA’s request for rehearing is beyond the scope of the issues raised in Caithness’ complaint,” FERC wrote.

“The changes LIPA seeks are neither necessary to grant proper relief on Caithness’ complaint, nor supported by LIPA’s effort to establish — through a few sentences in its comments rather than a properly filed complaint — that NYISO’s existing tariff is unjust and unreasonable without LIPA’s requested revisions.”