By William Opalka

New York officials and others last week asked FERC to rehear an order that exempted renewable generation and self-supply resources from buyer-side mitigation rules in the state’s installed capacity market (EL15-64).

The Oct. 9 order was seen by the commission as a way to exempt resources that had minimal impact on capacity prices while aiding compliance with federal carbon emission rules. (See FERC Grants Exemption for Renewables, Self-Supply in NY ICAP Market.)

But several parties who sought the exemption in May say the commission’s order will stifle development of the very resources it is trying to protect. Petitioners representing power generators, meanwhile, sought to reverse or limit the exemptions.

“The commission adopted a renewable generation exemption that is unduly restrictive because it is limited to a narrowly defined population of intermittent renewable resources, and further constrains the exemption with an annual cap on new eligible renewable capacity,” said the original petitioners, the New York Public Service Commission, the New York Power Authority and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. “Moreover, the commission declined to adopt a general exemption for demand response resources.”

The petitioners were joined by New York City, the Natural Resources Defense Council and intervenors representing large commercial and industrial customers.

The order stated that a renewables cap should be developed through a stakeholder process at NYISO. The petitioners say they want no cap imposed. They also objected to the exclusion of demand response resources.

In other filings:

• Astoria Generating, TC Ravenswood, NRG Energy and Cogen Technologies Linden Venture want to eliminate the self-supply exemption, saying that FERC did not identify evidence that it would not suppress capacity market prices.
• The Independent Power Producers of New York and the Electric Power Supply Association asked the commission to bar state entities such as NYPA from using the self-supply exemption, saying they have ”demonstrated a strong incentive and ability to subsidize new entry to suppress ICAP prices.”
• Transmission owners Consolidated Edison, Central Hudson Gas & Electric, Rochester Gas & Electric and New York State Electric and Gas requested a rehearing because there was no inclusion of demand response resources.
• Entergy is advocating a reversal of the order, saying the exemptions will “become tools to artificially suppress capacity prices.”