FERC approved cost allocations for projects involved with northern New Jersey’s Bergen-Linden Corridor (BLC) last week (ER17-725) but left room for revisions based on a challenge to the original allocation (EL15-67).

In last week’s order, FERC denied requests for clarification and rehearing and accepted PJM’s Tariff revisions that allocate costs for the BLC projects to Neptune Regional Transmission System, Hudson Transmission Partners and Linden VFT.

Linden and the New York Power Authority had requested clarification on PJM’s allocations. NYPA noted that Hudson’s responsibilities for the projects increased by $10.17 million after the company previously carried no responsibility for the upgrades. PJM failed to explain how modeled flows on the system could have changed so significantly since the RTO last performed its analysis, the agency contended. Hudson owns the merchant transmission facility NYPA uses for energy exports into New York City.

Linden argued that the solution-based distribution factor (DFAX) method bases its allocation on power flow, making it “particularly ill-suited” for non-flow-based projects, like the BLC.

FERC dismissed these complaints, explaining that they “challenge the cost allocation method in PJM’s Tariff rather than whether PJM properly applied its Tariff,” but it conditioned the approval on the outcome of Linden’s separate challenge to the allocation method itself.

“We find that PJM has correctly applied its Tariff, and the question of whether the Tariff provision regarding cost allocation is just and reasonable is pending before the commission in other proceedings,” the order said.

FERC Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur concurred with the order but wrote separately to note her dissent on the denial of Linden’s original challenge to the allocation methodology. Several organizations, including NYPA and Linden, requested rehearing of the issue, which FERC granted in June 2016.

— Rory D. Sweeney