BOSTON — FERC Commissioner Judy Chang emphasized the importance of demand response, long-term transmission planning and gas-electric coordination in her address to the NEPOOL Participants Committee meeting Dec. 5.

“We have to capture more demand-side flexibility,” Chang said. “Whether it’s regulatory barriers or process barriers, I’m very interested in working with the ISO, states and developers to discuss how we can do better.”

Demand response has been a focus of the New England states over the past year. The New England Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners created a working group on retail demand response and load flexibility, which has been meeting throughout the year. Utilities in multiple New England states are in the early stages of rolling out advanced metering infrastructure in their service territories.

Regarding transmission planning, Chang called FERC Order 1920-A “a really solid order.” She said it includes “many of the features that I think ISO-NE has been doing for a number of years,” pointing to ISO-NE’s longer term transmission planning process. (See FERC Approves New Pathway for New England Transmission Projects.)

“Transmission remains to be one of my priorities at the commission,” Chang said. She also highlighted gas-electric coordination as a key area of interest and asked stakeholders for feedback on potential gas-electric coordination improvements.

“Hopefully we can make some incremental improvements to enhance reliability on both the gas and electric side,” Chang said. “I hope to be able to identify a few things that we can do to incrementally improve the situation in New England.”

ISO-NE Monthly Operations

ISO-NE COO Vamsi Chadalavada said energy market revenues were down by about 20% in November (through Nov. 25) relative to 2023. He noted that mild weather and growth of behind-the-meter solar led to record low loads on the month.

He noted that exports to Canada have increased amid drought pressures in Quebec; exports from New England reached their highest level over the past year in November.

His report also indicates that power sector emissions for 2024 continue to track ahead of 2023 levels due to a significant year-over-year increase in natural gas generation. Emissions have declined in the year from both coal and oil generation.

Officer Election

The PC approved a slate of officers to run the committee in 2025:

• • Chair Sarah Bresolin, Alternative Resources Sector, ENGIE North America
  • End User Sector Vice-Chair Jackie Bihrle, Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office
  • Publicly Owned Entity Sector Vice-Chair Dave Cavanaugh, Energy New England
  • Generation Sector Vice-Chair Michelle Gardner, NextEra Energy Resources
  • Supplier Sector Vice-Chair Aleks Mitreski, Brookfield Renewable Energy Group
  • Transmission Sector Vice-Chair Dave Norman, Versant Power
  • Secretary Sebastian Lombardi, NEPOOL Council
  • Assistant Secretary Pat Gerity, NEPOOL Council