The Public Utility of Commission of Texas on Friday welcomed Arthur C. D’Andrea, who replaced longtime Commissioner Ken Anderson as its third member.

D’Andrea was appointed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Nov. 14 to a term expiring Sept. 1, 2023. He joins Chair DeAnn Walker, who, like D’Andrea, worked in Abbot’s office before joining the commission.

“It seems natural for him to be on the same floor now,” Walker said after calling Friday’s meeting to order.

Brandy Marty Marquez, now the PUC’s longest-tenured commissioner with four years of experience, is the only member to have been appointed by former Gov. Rick Perry. She said it felt “weird” as she sat in Anderson’s chair.

“It feels like I’m in a totally different room. Who are all you people?” said Marquez, greeting D’Andrea as the “Brazilian bad boy.”

Anderson, whose latest term expired in August, joined the commission in 2008, making him its longest serving member ever.

Marquez shared several thoughts on Anderson with the commission and its audience, teasingly saying he is a “very snazzy dresser” and “likes to rock a winter beard.” She also called Anderson “the consummate gentleman, who’s not afraid to kick a little hindquarters now and then,” and the “ultimate protector of our energy-only market.”

Marquez said she had recently read an article that referred to parents as the “original gangsters, because they tell you like it is to your face, and behind your back, they compliment you wildly.”

“That’s pretty gangster,” she said. “Commissioner Anderson never missed an opportunity to compliment his staff, to compliment the staff of the commission, and to compliment the bar that argued before it. He always said that the quality of the folks that came before this commission was his favorite part of the job.”

D’Andrea wasted little time in making himself at home, spending nearly 30 minutes questioning parties to a Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO) rate case (Docket 46449). The PUC decided to take up the case again at its Dec. 14 meeting over requests by intervenors to be granted additional time to conduct discovery after SWEPCO added late expert testimony.

D’Andrea was an assistant general counsel in the governor’s office (2015-2017) and an assistant solicitor general for the state’s attorney general (2009-15). He received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1998 and a law degree from the University of Texas.

PUC to Ask MISO to Create Texas Local Resource Zone

Picking up on an issue Anderson followed for several years, the PUC has requested MISO seek FERC approval to create a separate local resource zone (LRZ) that would “better align the costs and benefits” of market efficiency projects (MEPs) for the portions of Texas within the RTO’s footprint.

The commission asked for an effective date no later than Dec. 6, saying it would lead to a “more granular estimation” of transmission projects’ costs and benefits. Staff told the PUC that Texas currently pays 18% of the costs while receiving 70% of the benefits, and that a Texas LRZ would still have the state “bearing less of the costs than the benefits.”

The action came after Walker attended an Entergy Regional State Committee (ERSC) meeting in place of Anderson, who was the PUC’s liaison to MISO.

At their Dec. 7 meeting, MISO’s Board of Directors will consider the $129.7 million, 25.5-mile West of the Atchafalaya Basin 500-kV economic project in southeast Texas, which is being submitted as a market efficiency project. Texas will receive 72.1% of the production cost benefits from the project and be responsible for 17.9% of the costs, while Louisiana will receive 27.7% of the benefits but be responsible for 70% of the costs.

“These cost and benefit impacts have caused discussions within the ERSC members,” Walker wrote in a memo to her fellow commissioners. (See MTEP 17 Advances with Disputed Texas Project.)

Walker said ERSC members discussed four proposals to address the issue, one of those being a separate LRZ within MISO that would contain only its Texas territory for cost-allocation purposes.

“Commissioner Anderson … spent lot of time on this. This was his preference,” Walker said. “After delving into it, I think it’s the best answer.”

When Entergy joined MISO in 2013, a MISO South sub-region was created that included two LRZs. A third was created in 2015 to incorporate the portions of Mississippi in the MISO footprint.

Rulemaking Would Require Periodic Rate Reviews for IOUs

The PUC adopted a proposed rulemaking requiring investor-owned utilities operating solely inside ERCOT to make periodic filings for rate proceedings, as required by the recent Texas Legislature’s Senate Bill 735 (Project 47545).

The rulemaking would require each electric utility in ERCOT’s footprint to file for a comprehensive rate review within 48 months of its most recent rate order.

The ruling applies to AEP Texas, CenterPoint Energy, Cross Texas Transmission, Electric Transmission Texas, Lone Star Transmission, Oncor, Sharyland Utilities and Sharyland Distribution Services, Texas-New Mexico Power, and Wind Energy Transmission Texas.

In a memo to Marquez and D’Andrea, Walker said she found it “unacceptable” that some non-investor-owned transmission service providers have not had a rate review in more than 20 years. The commissioners agreed with Walker’s proposal that schedules for the non-investor-owned transmission providers be considered in a separate docket (Project 46393).

The commission is accepting comments on its proposed rulemaking. It is facing a June 1 deadline under state law to complete the rulemaking.

Commission to Intervene in EDF FERC Complaint

Following an executive session, the commissioners voted to intervene EDF Renewable Energy’s Section 206 complaint against MISO, PJM and SPP (EL18-26).

In its Oct. 30 complaint, EDF asked FERC to order the grid operators to amend their Tariffs and joint operating agreements to provide more information regarding the treatment of “affected systems” — areas that neighbor RTOs hosting new generation.

The complaint has drawn 10 intervenors from a wide range of the industry.

Order 2003 and the RTOs’ tariffs and JOAs require the host and neighboring RTOs to “coordinate.” But EDF said interconnection customers in MISO, PJM and SPP “have no idea what ‘coordination’ means because of the lack of detail in the Tariffs and JOAs.”

The company said the RTOs should file revisions providing details on the timing of affected systems studies; the base models used in the analyses; cost allocation of generation projects on either side of transmission seams; and whether the studies will use the energy or network resource interconnection service standard.

— Tom Kleckner