FERC on May 30 rejected a request by four Western utilities to rehear its approval of the “transmission contributors” option in the SPP Markets+ tariff but provided the utilities clarification on the boundaries of that provision. 

The Markets+ tariff, which the commission approved in January, identifies two sources of transmission to be used by the market.     

The first source is from transmission service providers (TSPs) who have committed assets to the market by signing a Markets+ transmission service provider agreement.  

The second is transmission capacity offered by “transmission contributors” — market participants who contribute their transmission rights on the system of a TSP that is not participating in Markets+. 

In its Jan. 16 order approving the tariff, FERC found the transmission contributors option to be just and reasonable. It also directed SPP to adopt language the RTO used in a previous deficiency response noting that Markets+ transmission contributors would be responsible for “coordinating transmission schedule changes, curtailments and other operational concerns with the non-participating [transmission service provider] and non-participating [balancing authority], in accordance with the applicable governing documents and agreements, including applicable” Open Access Transmission Tariffs (OATTs).  

SPP included the change in a compliance filing the commission approved April 17.  

‘Ownership-like’ Concerns

At issue in the May 30 order (ER24-1658) was a Feb. 17 complaint filed by PacifiCorp, Portland General, Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power. The first two of those utilities have committed to joining CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM), while the last two are subsidiaries of NV Energy, which is leaning heavily in favor of EDAM.  

In their filing, the utilities asked FERC to clarify that no provisions in the Markets+ tariff — or any related proceedings — grants transmission customers “ownership-like” rights on the systems of non-participating TSPs or “grants, waives, modifies or otherwise interprets any rights or obligations under the OATT of a non-SPP participant not before the commission” in the proceeding. 

PacifiCorp and NV Energy first raised the issue last year soon after SPP filed the Markets+ tariff with FERC. (See SPP Markets+ Tariff Sparks Concerns for PacifiCorp, NV Energy.) 

As stated in the order, the utilities argued that, “without this requested clarification, the January 16 order would be unlawful to the extent that it could be read to grant a class of transmission customers — in particular, firm point-to-point transmission customers wheeling to another balancing authority area’s interface — the unilateral right to exempt themselves from generally applicable OATT requirements, such as the transmission provider’s scheduling requirements and redispatch protocols.”   

The utilities alternatively asked the commission to rehear the matter if it declined to issue such a clarification or if Paragraph 155 of the Jan. 16 order “explicitly or implicitly grants ownership rights to transmission customers taking service on non-participating transmission service providers’ systems,” FERC noted. 

In granting the utilities’ request for clarification, the commission wrote that “under the Markets+ tariff, Markets+ transmission contributors may contribute only their transmission service rights [emphasis theirs] on non-participating transmission systems, in accordance with the non-participating transmission service providers’ OATTs or other governing documents.” 

The commission went on to clarify that it “agrees with SPP’s explanation that the transmission capability of non-participating transmission service providers is not available to Markets+ unless an entity that has transmission service rights on a non-participating transmission service provider’s system makes them available to Markets+, regardless of whether the entity is in a participating balancing authority or not.” 

The commission added that, because it had granted the utilities’ request for clarification, it had dismissed their request for rehearing as moot. 

‘Too Narrowly’

FERC dismissed a separate rehearing request by the four utilities, which had argued the compliance directives in Paragraph 154 of the Jan. 16 order could imply that SPP would be able to dictate the terms and conditions of service to transmission customers taking service under the OATTs of non-participating TSPs. 

“We are not persuaded by rehearing parties’ assertions that the January 16 order purports to control transmission service obligations on non-participating transmission service providers’ systems, and we thus sustain the compliance directives in Paragraph 154 of the January 16 order,” the commission wrote.  

The commissioners said the utilities were reading “the directives in Paragraph 154 too narrowly, ignoring the broader context of the commission’s findings on SPP’s Markets+ transmission contributor option in the surrounding paragraphs.”