FERC last week granted a petition from a company looking to build an undersea transmission line to Puerto Rico, affirming several of the developer’s questions about its status as a utility and weighing in on whether the project would make the island territory’s transmission system subject to FERC’s jurisdiction (EL23-14).

The company, Alternative Transmission Inc. (ATI), filed the petition for declaratory order in December. It asked FERC to confirm that it could qualify as a utility and therefore be able to submit applications asking for orders directing other utilities to interconnect with or provide transmission services for Project Equity, its Puerto Rican project.

It also asked whether, if FERC were to direct interconnection or transmission to Puerto Rico as part of the project, those orders would “provide a basis for the commission to exercise plenary jurisdiction over Puerto Rico’s electric transmission system or utilities, which have not previously been regulated by the commission.”

FERC first said that its answers to most of the questions would depend on the specifics of an actual project application and any proposed interconnections. But it confirmed that ATI could qualify as a utility and could submit applications asking for an order requiring interconnection or transmission services. It could also therefore be a target of those applications by others.

On the jurisdiction question, FERC said that, unless there was an order issued pursuant to Federal Power Act Sections 210 and 211 (requiring interconnection or transmission), the interconnection that ATI is proposing between Puerto Rico and the continental U.S. would in fact result in the territory’s utilities becoming subject to FERC jurisdiction.

Those sections do provide an exemption though, the commission said.

“Upon receipt of valid applications under Sections 210 and/or 211, the commission could issue orders pursuant to those sections of the FPA allowing interconnection and/or transmission of energy between Puerto Rico and the interstate transmission system while retaining the jurisdictional status quo such that Puerto Rico’s electric utilities would not be ‘public utilities’ under Section 201e of the FPA,” it said.

However, FERC would still have jurisdiction of Puerto Rico’s utilities as part of other FPA sections including 210, 211, 212, 215 and “any other FPA provisions that provide for jurisdiction over Puerto Rico’s transmission system and its utilities.”