FERC on Thursday denied a New York company’s complaint against Consolidated Edison (NYSE:ED), saying it did not provide any evidence that the utility’s wholesale distribution service (WDS) rate was unjust or unreasonable (EL23-8).

There is little information online about the company, called Cubit Power One. According to an application filed with the New York City Industrial Development Agency in 2014, it is a special-purpose entity created “to develop green manufacturing facilities” seeking to build an “energy-efficient packaged ice manufacturing facility with on-site power generation” on Staten Island, with plans to eventually turn it into the city’s first carbon-capture plant. Its listed website is defunct.

That on-site generator, an 11-MW combined heat and power unit, was at the center of Cubit’s complaint. It told FERC that revisions Con Ed proposed making to its WDS rate in response to a New York Public Service Commission proceeding would severely reduce the income the company received from selling the unit’s extra power onto the grid.

The WDS rate is based on electric distribution companies’ average retail standby service rates, which are charged for the delivery of replacement energy that would normally be produced by distributed generators.

The New York PSC last March adopted a new cost allocation methodology for standby rates to “more accurately align individual customers’ contribution to system costs with the rates such customers pay, thereby sending improved price signals to those customers.” It required EDCs to submit revised standby and buyback rates (15-E-0751).

Con Ed’s current WDS rate is $7.59/kW/month and is charged when the amount being sold is over 1,500 kW. Cubit alleged that the new rate as a result of the PSC proceeding could be less than $0.20/kW/month. It argued that the new rate would allow Con Ed to “recover costs well in excess of Con Ed’s own cost of service.” Cubit also claimed that a Con Ed employee had sent an email saying the new rate would be $2.29/kW/month.

In response, Con Ed said that Cubit failed to include a later message from the email chain, which said that assumption was subject to change based on the PSC proceeding.

“Cubit’s arguments are based on conjectures regarding what may ultimately happen in the New York commission rate proceeding,” FERC said. The proposed rates submitted as part of that proceeding “are subject to change at any time.”

FERC noted that Con Ed will file an updated WDS rate once the PSC proceeding is completed, at which time it will determine whether it is just and reasonable.