FERC denied reconsideration of a 2012 ruling that granted in part Exelon Wind’s petition for a declaratory order, but it once again declined to initiate an enforcement action against the Public Utility Commission of Texas (EL12-80).

The owner of several qualifying facilities under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, Exelon Wind had protested that a PUCT order approving Southwestern Public Service’s treatment of QF energy purchases violated PURPA.

While rejecting the request for an enforcement action, FERC’s 2012 order concluded that the PUCT’s approval of avoided cost rates linked to the locational imbalance price (LIP) at a QF’s node in the SPP Energy Imbalance Service market was inconsistent with PURPA.

The PUCT, Occidental Permian and SPS parent Xcel Energy filed requests for reconsideration in September 2012, saying the revised methodology for calculating avoided costs approved by FERC was inconsistent with PURPA.

FERC said the PUCT’s reliance on SPP’s LIP to calculate avoided costs was moot, as the RTO replaced the Energy Imbalance Market with the Integrated Marketplace, which relies on LMPs, in March 2014. The Texas commission has approved SPS’s request to substitute LMP for LIP in calculating avoided costs. “Accordingly, we find that the issue of whether LIP may be used to calculate avoided costs has been overtaken by events,” FERC said.

SPP-IS Partial Settlement Offer Accepted

The commission accepted a partial settlement on behalf of SPP, the Western Area Power Administration-Upper Great Plains Region (Western-UGP), Missouri River Energy Services and the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, resolving issues over the October integration into SPP of Western-UGP, Basin Electric Power Cooperative and the Heartland Consumers Power District as transmission-owning members (ER14-2850, ER14-2851).

The Nebraska MEA had intervened in SPP’s original September 2014 filing, raising concerns about seams issues resulting from the decision of the Integrated System’s entities (Western-UGP, Basin and Heartland) to become SPP members.

Missouri River Energy Services (MRES) asked FERC for relief from marginal loss and marginal congestion payments associated with the exercise of its transmission rights. Basin Electric and Heartland also requested such “carve out” treatment. FERC found the concerns to be of “material fact” best addressed through hearing and settlement judge procedures.

The parties to the settlement agreed to forego a full evidentiary hearing before an administrative law judge and brief the issue directly to the commission, using stipulated facts, legal precedent and pleadings previously filed with the commission addressing carve-out treatment under the SPP Tariff.

FERC Accepts Termination of Northwestern-So. Montana Interconnection Pact

FERC accepted NorthWestern Corp.’s termination of a large generator interconnection agreement with Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative, saying NorthWestern does not have to make further reimbursements to the co-op for network upgrade costs (ER16-763).

The 2011 agreement governed the interconnection with Southern Montana’s Highwood Generating Station, which the co-op decommissioned, dismantled and sold for parts in June 2014.

Northwestern filed a termination notice in January, asking for confirmation that it would not be required to pay $5.84 million in unreimbursed upgrade costs and interest.

Southern Montana and Beartooth Electric Cooperative — a Southern Montana member that advanced a portion of the funds for the network upgrades — protested the filing, saying they were entitled to refunds. FERC found for NorthWestern, saying a transmission operator “has no further obligation to reimburse the interconnection customer for its upfront payment if the generating facility ceases commercial operation before the interconnection customer has been completely reimbursed.”

FERC Denies a Waiver

FERC denied Montana-Dakota Utilities’s (MDU) request for a waiver of SPP Tariff charges assessed to pay the commission’s annual fees (ER16-866).

MDU made the request in February, saying the charges were the same as those paid to MISO for serving the same transmission load. SPP agreed not to oppose the waiver request if its FERC assessment calculation did not include Montana-Dakota’s transmission service.

But the commission likened MDU’s situation to that in which two or more transmission operators transmit power “sequentially” over long distances, one after the other. In that case, the commission said, “each RTO public utility or individual public utility will be assessed an annual charge based on its respective transmission of such electric energy.”

– Tom Kleckner