By William Opalka

FERC on Thursday dismissed a complaint by transmission developers who were excluded from New York public policy projects under Order 1000 (EL16-84).

The developers had asked the commission in June to order New York regulators to begin a new process to evaluate transmission upgrades to alleviate congestion and bring renewable energy downstate. The New York Public Service Commission had approved a list of transmission developers eligible to participate in building the state’s Energy Highway initiative. (See New York Transmission Developers Ask FERC to Order a Do-over.)

The developers — Boundless Energy NE, CityGreen Transmission and Miller Bros. — jointly filed their complaint as Competitive Transmission Developers (CTD). They said NYISO violated its Tariff and FERC directives under Order 1000 when it solicited projects without conducting its own review and instead deferred to state regulators.

The developers said the ISO should follow its normal study process — including its base assumptions and generator dispatch modeling — to consider competing solutions without excluding specific technologies or relying on the PSC’s assumptions and modeling.

But FERC said the ISO was in compliance with its Tariff and Order 1000. “NYISO’s [Tariff] permitted NYISO, in consultation with stakeholders, to rely on the New York commission, with input from NYISO and interested parties, to identify the public policy transmission needs, and the New York commission identified the public policy transmission needs here,” FERC added.

“Additionally, we disagree with CTD that the New York commission’s identified public policy need transformed NYISO’s sponsorship model into a competitive bidding model. The New York commission did not select a specific project and did not require NYISO to conduct only a bid-based solicitation for a specific project.”

Boundless participated in an evaluation of potential projects last year by NYPSC staff, but staff recommended that the developer be disqualified because its proposals were deemed not cost-effective. CityGreen, which is interested in developing HVDC and AC transmission facilities, and Miller Bros., a utility contracting company, are not qualified transmission developers in NYISO.

Developers’ proposals, which were submitted in late April, are currently being evaluated by NYISO staff.