FERC last week approved CAISO’s request to be relieved of its requirement to develop a conceptual statewide plan as part of its regional transmission planning process. The commission at its meeting also ruled on two disputes regarding the Western Energy Crisis of 2000/01.

The commission approved CAISO’s request, made in June, to eliminate the need for the statewide conceptual plan, which the ISO says is obsolete because of federal planning processes. (See CAISO Seeks to Drop Outdated Planning Role.) CAISO has developed the plan each year since 2010 as part of its lead role in the California Transmission Planning Group (CTPG). But the implementation of FERC Order 1000 superseded the CTPG, which is no longer operating.

“We agree with CAISO that the implementation of Order No. 1000’s regional transmission planning and interregional transmission coordination requirements have supplanted the benefits of developing a conceptual statewide plan, and that the tariff provisions to develop a conceptual statewide plan are now redundant and therefore unnecessary,” FERC said in its order.

The commission last week also approved an uncontested settlement filed last December between certain California parties and MPS Merchant Services, the successor to Aquila Merchant Services and Aquila Power. “The settlement resolves claims arising from events and transactions in the Western energy markets during the period of Jan. 1, 2000, through June 20, 2001, as they relate to MPS,” FERC said in the order.

Separately, FERC approved another energy crisis settlement between San Diego Gas & Electric and sellers of energy and ancillary services in CAISO and the now-defunct California Power Exchange.

— Jason Fordney