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December 26, 2025

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State Briefs

CALIFORNIA

CEC Denies Shasta County Wind Farm

The Energy Commission denied the approval of the Fountain Wind project, ending a yearslong battle by Shasta County to stop the project from moving forward. In October 2021, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted down the project, denying ConnectGen’s appeal of the planning commission’s decision not to approve the wind farm. But the California Legislature in 2022 approved AB 205, which allowed the commission to consider approving the project even though Shasta County rejected it.

More: Redding Record Searchlight

PUC Votes to Keep Utility Profits High

The Public Utilities Commission voted 4-1 to keep utility profit margins near 10% despite calls to cut them to 6%. The four commissioners who voted to keep the return on equity at about 10% said they believed they had found a balance between the 11% or higher rate that Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric and SoCalGas had requested and the affordability concerns of customers. The vote will slightly decrease the profit margins beginning next year. Edison’s rate will fall to 10.03% from 10.3%. California has the nation’s second-highest electric rates after Hawaii.

More: Los Angeles Times

MASSACHUSETTS

DPU Opens Probe into Volatile Energy Bills

Nine weeks after Gov. Maura Healey requested a review, the Department of Public Utilities opened an investigation of all delivery charges on electric and gas bills. The DPU said its probe “will examine the causes of bill volatility and promote a greater understanding of rates for customers to take greater control over their energy bills.” It also will explore whether to establish limits on how much charges can increase from month to month and whether certain charges should be eliminated, consolidated or “redesigned as a fixed charge.”

More: WBTS

MICHIGAN

Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Repeal Data Center Tax Incentives

A bipartisan bill introduced in the Legislature would repeal the state’s data center tax incentive laws. The existing data center laws provide sales and use tax exemptions for tech companies. The tax revenue otherwise would go to the state’s school aid or general fund. Under an earlier version of the incentive, eligible data centers built between 2020 and 2024 avoided paying about $13 million in taxes. The proposed repeal comes as public outrage over data centers is reaching new heights. The data centers are also poised to derail the state’s clean energy transition.

More: Inside Climate News

NEBRASKA

OPPD Again Delays Plan to Stop Burning Coal at North Omaha Plant

The Omaha Public Power District Board of Directors voted to delay decommissioning the North Omaha Station’s coal-fired units. OPPD for more than a decade had planned to end coal use at its North Omaha power plant. After multiple setbacks, the utility aimed to transition the two coal-fired units to natural gas by the end of 2026, but new requirements from SPP and an increase in energy needs delayed the decision. The board delayed a previous plan that would have phased out coal in 2023. A 2022 vote pushed the conversion until at least 2026, in large part because of a regional backlog in replacement power. OPPD said if the timeline progresses as expected, the conversion could take place in 2028.

More: Nebraska Public Media

OHIO

Settlement Offer Would Give $275M to FirstEnergy Customers to End HB 6 Probes

Utility companies affiliated with FirstEnergy have agreed to provide $275 million in restitution to customers under a proposed settlement that would resolve years of investigations tied to the passage of House Bill 6 and related regulatory violations.

The proposed stipulation, filed with the Public Utilities Commission, covers Ohio Edison Co., The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. and The Toledo Edison Co. and would end four major commission investigations along with several related complaints if approved. On Nov. 19, the PUC and companies resolved three of the four investigations and had tentatively settled for $250 million in total for misconduct related to the HB 6 bribery scandal. But the latest stipulation adds another $25 million to the settlement and specifies all the money will go to customers.

More: Cleveland.com

TEXAS

AG Sues Xcel Over Role in Smokehouse Creek Fire

The Office of the Attorney General has sued Xcel Energy for its role in the 2024 Smokehouse Creek Fire, which was the largest wildfire in state history. Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Xcel of making “false representations about its safety commitments” and of ignoring warnings about infrastructure problems. He claimed that those actions “created a substantial wildfire risk.” Texas A&M Forest Service investigators found that power lines started that fire and the Windy Deuce fire. The fires burned nearly 2,000 square miles in Texas and Oklahoma. Xcel has agreed to $361 million in 212 settlements, with 42 claims still pending.

More: KXAN

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Company Briefs

Ford to Discontinue EV Truck, Lay off Battery Plant Workers

Ford has ceased production of the all-electric F-150 Lightning and instead will focus on hybrid vehicles and a future line of smaller, cheaper EVs.

Ford said the shift away from larger EVs is due to “lower-than-expected demand, high costs and regulatory changes.” The company plans to expand hybrid options to nearly every vehicle in its lineup, with larger vehicles gaining plug-in hybrids that power the wheels with electric motors but carry a gas engine to generate energy for the battery.

Ford also will lay off about 1,500 workers in Kentucky as it converts its BlueOval SK battery plant from making EV batteries to making batteries for a new energy storage business. 

More: Car and Driver; NPR; Kentucky Lantern 

Judge Denies US Wind Request to Halt Trump Admin Attacks

U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher declined to issue an injunction that would have protected US Wind from what it says are Trump administration attempts to kill its planned wind farm off Ocean City, Md.

Gallagher noted in her decision that US Wind technically could move forward with constructing its wind farm. Even though President Donald Trump’s administration has announced its intention to re-evaluate the crucial Construction and Operations Plan approval issued during former President Joe Biden’s administration, it has not actually revoked the permit, Gallagher wrote.

In a previous decision, Gallagher preliminarily rejected a request from the Trump administration to remand the permit back to the Department of the Interior for reconsideration. Gallagher ruled the government needed to present more information for her to make a ruling but allowed the department to carry on with any “internal review” of the permit.

More: Maryland Matters

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Federal Briefs

Senate Approves TVA Nominees

The U.S. Senate confirmed four Trump nominees to the Tennessee Valley Board of Directors. Senators voted 53-47 to confirm Mitch Graves, Jeff Hagood, Randall Jones and Arthur Graham. The nominations came after Trump removed Biden appointees to the board after taking office, leaving it without enough members for a quorum to hold votes. Lee Beaman, another Trump appointee, was removed from the nomination process and would have to receive a new nomination to be considered.

More: Tennessee Lookout

DOE Inspector General to Probe Canceled Climate Grants

The Energy Department’s inspector general’s office says it will probe a Trump administration move to cancel nearly $8 billion in climate and energy funding that primarily impacted blue states.

“The Office of Inspector General recently announced an audit which will review the Department of Energy’s processes when cancelling financial assistance and whether those cancellations were in accordance with established criteria,” Nelson wrote in a letter. Taking up the probe does not necessarily mean the cancellation was improper.

Earlier in 2025, the DOE canceled awards to 223 projects worth about $7.6 billion. Some of the largest cancellations affected funding for hydrogen hubs in California and the Pacific Northwest.

More: The Hill

NRC Extends TVA Nuclear Plant

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved another 20-year extension for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama. The extension will allow the three reactors to operate until their 80th birthdays in the mid-2050s. Their licenses were set to expire in 2033, 2034 and 2036. The plant can produce nearly 4 GW.

More: Chattanooga Times Free Press

BLM Advances Libra Solar Project

The Bureau of Land Management approved changes to the Libra Solar Project in Nevada, marking the first time the agency has advanced a solar project since July. The $2.3 billion project is among the largest in the U.S., adding 700 MW of solar and 700 MW of battery storage. Groundbreaking is scheduled for early 2026, with commercial operations planned by the end of 2027.

More: pv magazine

Mexico Greenlights 20 Renewable Projects

Private companies will invest $4.75 billion to build 20 renewable energy projects across 11 Mexican states, Energy Minister Luz Elena González said. González said the projects, 15 of which are solar and five wind, will add 3,320 MW of generation capacity and 1,488 MW of storage capacity.

More: Mexico News Daily

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State AGs, Enviros Argue Campbell Plant Orders Exceed DOE’s Authority

The U.S. Department of Energy is exceeding its authority by using Federal Power Act Section 202(c) to keep the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan running under several consecutive “emergency” orders, opponents argued in recent court filings with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (25-1159).

By defining “emergency” beyond its spatial and temporal limits while continuously extending mandated operation, DOE is taking unprecedented power to control the U.S. generation mix, the attorneys general of Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota argued in a joint brief filed Dec. 19.

The law was meant to give DOE the authority to keep plants online amid war or similar emergency circumstances, like extreme weather.

“Historically, DOE has used that authority narrowly and sparingly,” the attorneys general said. “But here, DOE asserts that a 15-state region of the country is in an energy ‘emergency’ that, if upheld, would empower DOE to order any and all power plants in the region to operate for ‘years.’”

DOE ordered plant owner Consumers Energy and MISO to postpone Campbell’s retirement, originally scheduled for May 31. The states, joined by several environmentalist organizations, challenged the order in July. Since then, the department has issued an additional two orders keeping the plant running. (See related story, MISO: Retirement-delayed Campbell Coal Plant not a Capacity Resource.)

To submit a commentary on this topic, email forum@rtoinsider.com.

Earthjustice, the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and other organizations filed their own joint brief in the case making similar arguments.

“Section 202(c) places meaningful limits on the department’s discretion, permitting it to compel generation only where an ‘emergency exists’ — that is, to prevent an imminent, unexpected shortage of electricity,” they argued. “The Federal Power Act addresses long-term grid reliability elsewhere, in provisions that withhold federal authority to exercise command-and-control authority over the grid. The department therefore may not use Section 202(c) to address long-term grid reliability concerns.”

Section 202(c) gives DOE important and necessary authority to deal with actual, short-term emergencies on the grid, Earthjustice senior attorney Michael Lenoff said in an interview.

“They’ve expressly said that they are using 202(c) to address long-term issues,” Lenoff said. “And those long-term issues are not part of DOE’s authority. That’s the role of states and grid operators and FERC.”

The Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C., home of the U.S. Department of Energy | DOE

The industry has processes like reliability-must-run agreements and system support resources that can keep power plants running when shutting them down would lead to reliability violations, he said.

“You enter an RMR deal when there actually is a reliability reason that you need to address,” Lenoff said. “You don’t mischaracterize or misunderstand the evidence that props up a resource that’s not needed and that costs massive amounts of money to produce power.”

MISO had more than enough power to make it through peak demands this summer without the Campbell plant, he added.

While the case is focused on Campbell, DOE also has ordered the Eddystone plant in Pennsylvania online since the summer, and on Dec. 16, the department stopped the Centralia coal plant in Washington state from shutting down. (See related story, DOE Orders Retiring Wash. Coal Plants to Stay Online for Winter.)

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said he would try to keep coal plants running, and with several other plants around the country to retire at the end of 2025, more orders could be coming, Lenoff said. Tri-State Generation & Transmission’s Craig Unit 1 is up for retirement at the end of the year, and the co-op has told The Colorado Sun it expects a 202(c) order. Lenoff said the Schahfer 17 and 18 coal plants in Indiana also could be the subject of future orders.

“All those are scheduled to retire pursuant to long-developed plans by utilities and state regulators and consumer advocates and a host of other stakeholders to ensure that consumers don’t pay more than what they need to pay to keep the lights on,” he said.

In the case of the Campbell plant, Consumers executed a state-approved plan to retire it and replace the capacity with newer resources that would increase available generation capacity, save ratepayers money and cut pollution, the attorneys general said in their brief.

“The agreement directed the Campbell retirement and the construction, procurement and extended operation of other major generating resources,” they added. “Those resources are now online and producing cleaner, lower-cost power. The net effect was to substantially increase the total generating resources available in the region.”

DOE used its 202(c) authority just 19 times between 1977 and 2024, mostly in response to extreme weather, and in each case at the request of a system operator, utility or both, the attorneys general said. The Campbell order proposes a transformative use of the law, which effectively displaces state law and FPA Sections 205 and 206, which FERC uses to regulate resource adequacy, they argued.

“Indeed, it defies logic that Congress would grant DOE general authority over which power plants may retire across the country — a function with profound implications for rates, state sovereignty and a broad array of stakeholder interests — without any obligation to assess the effect on ratepayers or seek public input,” they said.

The New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity filed an amicus brief arguing that DOE exceeded its authority.

“The states, with support from FERC and regional grid operators, are primarily responsible for ensuring regional ‘resource adequacy,’ which is achieved when a region has enough energy supply to meet expected demand under various uncertain future conditions,” it said. “DOE is not the proper entity to independently identify a resource as essential for achieving resource adequacy, nor to impose its divergent determinations about resource adequacy on those who manage the grid.”

Using 202(c) to seize the role of resource adequacy monitor means DOE is usurping the role the FPA assigns to states, the institute argued.

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ERCOT Again Revising Large Load Interconnection Process

ERCOT has proposed revisions to its large load interconnection process just days after a new rule established more rigorous criteria for connecting data centers, bitcoin miners and other power-hungry facilities to the grid.

A new framework is necessary because the new process already is outdated, ERCOT leaders told regulators during the Public Utility Commission of Texas’ Dec. 18 open meeting.

“The processes that we’ve historically used to connect large loads are not providing the clarity or the certainty that’s needed for developers, so we’ve made improvements to those processes,” ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas told the commissioners. “Those changes, however, are already insufficient to manage the increases and the volume that we are seeing coming through … we think additional changes are needed.”

The ERCOT protocols define a “large load” as one or more facilities at a single site with an aggregate peak demand greater than or equal to 75 MW behind one or more common points of interconnection or service delivery points.

ERCOT had 63 GW of requests from large loads seeking interconnection at the end of 2024. It will go into 2026 with more than 233 GW in the queue, a staggering 269% increase. Data centers account for about 77% of that load.

“What we’re dealing with today is fairly unprecedented,” Vegas said.

The long-term solution is developing the infrastructure to serve the large loads, as Texas is doing. ERCOT, SPP and MISO have all approved extra-high voltage transmission projects of 500 or 765 kV, but those lines will not be completed until the 2030s. (See ERCOT Board Approves $9.4B 765-kV Project.)

Vegas said the current interconnection process “effectively studies the system” at a specific point in time. Within three to six months, an approved interconnection point may not be as suitable as once thought. Projects being pancaked in the same areas create a need to restudy and reconfirm the ability to serve the loads.

That introduces uncertainty and a lack of clarity as to where the customer is in the process, Vegas said.

“When you consider the size, the volume and the dollars that are being invested in these kinds of projects, it’s really an untenable process to continue with that approach,” he said.

Batch Process

To address the issue, ERCOT in February plans to roll out what it calls a batch process that will group together projects ready to be studied. That will establish transmission needs and capacity for the locked-in group of customers.

The first group, Batch 0, will create a foundation and baseline for subsequent batches, building on the assumptions that have changed from the previous group.

“There’s an interim period of time where we have to manage how to connect those large loads in a reliable way and do so expeditiously and in a way that optimizes the capacity that is on the grid today,” Vegas said. “There’s plenty of capacity for growth to connect, so we want to optimize bringing resources into that while the grid is upgraded and infrastructure is built.

ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas (right) lays out for Texas regulators the proposed interconnection process for large loads. | AdminMonitor

“We think that a batch process would best serve and be able to support getting clarity and transparency to developers,” he said.

ERCOT has retained McKinsey & Co. to organize the work and coordinate communications between the grid operator and its stakeholders. Staff plan to talk to transmission service providers (TSPs) and large load customers first to understand their issues and concerns.

At the same time, subject matter experts will develop the framework for the batch study process. General Counsel Chad Seely said ERCOT will use the Large Load Working Group as a forum to “check in” and the member-led Technical Advisory Committee to provide any updates. He said staff will update the PUC during its January open meetings, bringing a proposal on the batch study framework to the commission in February.

“There’s clearly a pressure to move quickly and support the economic growth that’s coming our way,” Vegas said, emphasizing that input from affected stakeholders will be “critical to doing this accurately.”

The work will include modifying ERCOT’s existing large load interconnection processes. The grid operator on Dec. 15 introduced a number of changes to the interim process that has been in place since 2022 with a revision to the Planning Guide (PGRR115).

The PGRR applies time limits to ERCOT’s review of TSP interconnection studies and allows large load projects to be included in other customers’ studies. With the change, ERCOT can evaluate large load projects in a quarterly stability analysis. TSPs also are required to submit a load-commissioning plan establishing the schedule for energizing each phase of the load’s project and update the schedule as the facilities serving the load are identified and eventually constructed.

Vegas likened the process to a restaurant that doesn’t accept reservations but promises a table to customers for dinner at 7 p.m. However, before then, other customers come in and end up with the available tables.

“That’s effectively the way the transmission study process works today,” Vegas said.

“Maybe we’re just so popular now that we have to start having a reservation system,” Commissioner Courtney Hjaltman said.

Vegas said milestones need to be developed to hold capacity committed to the transmission system until a project is built because serious projects ready to develop will be queued up. When milestones aren’t met, a process will be needed to reclaim the transmission capacity for subsequent batches, he said.

‘Whatever the Kitchen Cooks up’

ERCOT plans to process several batches each year, with the entire process expected to last three to five years “until significant infrastructure gets built.”

The PUC has opened a docket in the proceeding (59142) to capture comments from stakeholders and serve as a document depository. Several large load entities wasted little time in filing comments.

Schaper Energy Consulting said ERCOT’s “abandonment” of PGRR115 and “sudden pivot” to an undefined batch study procedure “threatens to undermine transparency and discard stakeholder-approved protocols.”

“It could erase years of development progress. ERCOT’s unannounced reversal introduces severe regulatory risk and undermines the certainty essential for continued investment,” the company wrote. “An abrupt regulatory change without sufficient transparency or thorough stakeholder engagement is not aligned with the stable regulatory environment for which Texas has historically been recognized and risks eroding confidence in ERCOT.”

Referencing Vegas’ restaurant analogy, Schaper said the batch study process “defies the logic of their own metaphor.”

“It is akin to a manager handling a dinner rush by forcing eager patrons into the parking lot to wait for whatever the kitchen cooks up,” the company said.

Google and energy project developer Lancium filed joint comments warning that the PUC needs to maintain cohesion across its proceedings related to Senate Bill 6. The legislation was signed into law earlier in 2025 and requires the commission to determine a cost allocation for large loads to ensure they’re paying their fair share of infrastructure expenses. (See Texas PUC Releases Rulemakings for Large Loads.)

“Without cohesion across proceedings, Texas risks under-planning the system, misallocating financial commitments and slowing substantial economic development,” Google and Lancium said.

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IESO Seeks Comment on Revised Monitoring Requirements

IESO has released proposed market rule and manual revisions to require synchrophasor data from storage resources, part of its effort to expand the use of phasor measurement units (PMUs).

The proposed market rules and manual revisions will require storage units rated at least 20 MVA, including aggregations, to provide their voltage and current phasor measurements and frequency for all three phases. The PMU requirements also apply to generators of 100 MVA and larger.

The requirement also would apply to any size storage or generation facility that can impact a NERC interconnection reliability operating limit. (See IESO to Expand Synchrophasor Data Requirements to Storage.)

The ISO also proposes doubling the reporting rate to 60 samples per second for all resources.

IESO officials briefed stakeholders on the changes at a Dec. 18 engagement session.

PMUs “are becoming more important for monitoring the power system as it’s becoming more dynamic,” said Dame Jankuloski, lead power system engineer with IESO’s performance validation and modeling group. “We are seeing within various jurisdictions the utilization of such data for both offline and real-time applications. It also helps us to promote interconnection-wide monitoring by sharing PMU data … with our neighboring jurisdictions.”

Dame Jankuloski, IESO | IESO

Ontario’s traditional supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) uses data from grid-connected facilities every two to 10 seconds, but the data lack precise time stamps needed to evaluate system disturbances, such as the January 2019 event at a steam unit in Florida that caused oscillations across the Eastern Interconnection. (See Oscillation Event Points to Need for Better Diagnostics.)

NERC, which has published PMU guidelines, is expected to elevate them to a reliability standard in the future, Jankuloski said. “The changes that we are proposing here are positioning the ISO to be able to comply with those changes that could come in the future.”

The Novel Applications for Synchronized Power Instrumentation working group — formerly the North American Synchrophasor Initiative — is drafting a research paper to propose future NERC requirements for real-time stability monitoring using synchrophasor data, IESO said.

IESO has 54 PMUs monitoring 24 facilities: four gas-fired generators, 14 wind farms, one solar installation and five substations. It expects to increase that number to 240 PMUs at 111 facilities, including 30 inverter-based resources.

Feedback on the rule and manual changes is due Jan. 22. Technical Panel approval is expected by May, with an effective date targeted for December 2026.

Large loads classified as inverter-based resources are not included in the proposed rule changes but are expected to be subject to such requirements in the future.

IESO applications for such loads should include PMU-capable devices and associated infrastructure in their project design during the System Impact Assessment process.

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Texas PUC Approves TEF Backup Power Program

The Texas Public Utility Commission has put out a proposed rule for public comment that would establish the fourth and final program under the $10 billion Texas Energy Fund.

The PUC endorsed staff’s proposal laying out procedures to apply for grants or loans to procure, install and operate backup power systems under the TEF’s Texas Backup Power Package Program during its Dec. 18 open meeting (59024).

The program would provide $1.8 billion in funding for qualifying entities to install and operate backup power equipment at hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities that support community health, safety and well-being. Staff’s proposed rules define a backup power package as a stand-alone, multiday backup power source for facilities without passing through a utility electric meter.

“Applications to this program could be in the thousands,” staff’s Rama Singh Rastogi told commissioners.

She said the program’s loans are structured as forgivable loans, with 100% forgiveness should the applicant comply with performance requirements. The program excludes sourcing power from electric school bus batteries until the PUC further studies their use and integration into the program.

Comments are due Jan. 30, 2026.

The commission also approved staff’s recommendation to approve more than $282 million in grants to six applicants for their 14 projects under the TEF’s Outside ERCOT program. The program offers grants for facility modernization, facility weatherization, reliability and resiliency, and vegetation management (58492).

Southwestern Public Service Co. is eligible for about half of the loans. It applied for $200 million in reliability and resiliency awards and was approved for $148.6 million, covering three projects. El Paso Electric was approved for $61.3 million in loans for two applications covering a variety of reliability projects.

The applicants still must pass a review by the PUC’s executive director before any funds are disbursed.

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Maine PUC Issues Multistate Transmission, Generation Procurement

The Maine Public Utilities Commission, in collaboration with the regulators of four other New England states, has issued a request for proposals to procure clean energy in northern Maine and 1,200 MW of transmission to connect it to the ISO-NE grid.

While northern Maine is notable for its significant onshore wind potential, much of the area is not directly connected to ISO-NE; it is part of the Eastern Interconnection through New Brunswick.

As states look to add clean energy to meet growing demand and decarbonize the grid, northern Maine has the potential to be a major area of clean energy growth, but the lack of transmission remains a significant barrier.

The RFP is intended to be complimentary to ISO-NE’s first Longer-term Transmission Planning (LTTP) procurement, which aims to reduce transmission constraints in Maine and establish a new interconnection point to help enable the development of 1,200 MW of onshore wind. The RTO intends to select a project from this procurement by September 2026. (See ISO-NE Provides More Detail on Responses to LTTP Procurement.)

Building on the ISO-NE procurement, the Maine PUC issued its RFP on Dec. 19 in coordination with Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. The solicitation is contingent upon the success of ISO-NE’s procurement; the PUC wrote that the transmission proposals would need to connect to the RTO “at the northern terminus of the facilities constructed as a result of ISO-NE’s [LTTP] solicitation.”

The RFP allows project bidders to submit standalone transmission or generation projects, or joint projects. The PUC wrote it “will give preference to projects that provide the lowest delivered cost of contract products and exhibit an ability to harmonize the generation and transmission components.”

Proposals are due Feb. 27. The PUC expects to decide on the bids by the end of May 2026. The commission noted that the RFP is intended to align with the timeline of the 2026 ISO-NE cluster request window, which is scheduled to open in October 2026.

Transmission and generation project in-service dates should roughly coincide with the in-service dates of the proposals for the ISO-NE LTTP procurement, the PUC said. The estimated in-service dates for the bids received by the RTO range from the fourth quarter of 2032 to the third quarter of 2035.

The PUC wrote it “is coordinating with other New England states in the evaluation of proposals and consideration of a joint selection in which all or some other combination of the coordinating states would participate.”

The RFP seeks to procure energy and renewable energy credits over a 20-year power purchase agreement. The procurement also allows project developers to include energy storage systems in their proposals.

“Proposals to include an energy storage system must demonstrate how the storage system will be designed and utilized to maximize use of the transmission line and reduce costs for ratepayers,” the PUC wrote.

On the transmission side, proposals “must be capable of delivering at least 1,200 MW of energy to the ISO-NE system from the generation component to the LTTU [Longer-term Transmission Upgrade] northern terminus in the Pittsfield, Maine, area.”

The PUC conducted a similar transmission and generation procurement in 2021 and 2022, selecting a transmission project submitted by LS Power and an onshore wind project submitted by Longroad Energy. However, the commission terminated the process in late 2023 after LS Power said it no longer could meet the fixed contract price.

LS Power attributed the cost increase in part to a delay caused by Maine’s efforts to include Massachusetts in the procurement at a late stage in the process. “The introduction of Massachusetts as a participant added delay due to the need to negotiate contracts in Massachusetts and have such contracts filed for approval in a contested case before the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities,” the company wrote in 2024 following the termination.

“After a year of delay, without signed contracts in either state, and having no certainty that contracts that would support project financing were even achievable, we could no longer hold our price or schedule,” the company added.

By coordinating with other states from the outset, the PUC’s second attempt at a northern Maine procurement may be able to avoid some of the risks that derailed its first attempt.

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Large Load Customers Languish in PSCo Interconnection Queue

With a surge in interconnection requests from large load customers, Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) has fallen behind on processing applications, a situation that has sparked concern from state regulators.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission held an informational meeting Dec. 16 to hear about large load service issues. The meeting was part of an investigatory proceeding the PUC launched in October after hearing a range of concerns from PSCo large load customers including whether they can execute contracts with utilities in a timely manner. The state may have lost some potential large customers as a result, a commission order said.

PUC staff said PSCo’s interconnection delays seem to be a recent phenomenon. The utility was receiving two or three interconnection requests a year from large load customers up until 2024, when the number of requests jumped to 18.

In the past three years, PSCo has received 37 large load interconnection requests, PUC staff said. Only two of those applicants have made it to a signed interconnection agreement. Eight have dropped out or are on hold.

Nineteen requests are stalled in the system impact study (SIS) phase, one of the first steps in the interconnection process. The SIS identifies system constraints and needed upgrades and may include a cost estimate.

Applicants pay a fee for the study and agree to a delivery time frame, which has typically been four months but more recently has increased to six months.

Ten of the 19 applicants stuck in the SIS phase paid for the study six to 12 months ago; four paid more than a year ago. The other five paid two to six months ago.

Of the 37 interconnection requests in the last three years, PUC staff found only one in which the SIS was finished on schedule.

PSCo’s Open Access Transmission Tariff specifies that the utility complete the SIS within 60 days of a signed study agreement. If the utility is going to miss the deadline, it must give the customer an explanation and a new completion date.

“The 60-day timeline … appears overly optimistic relative to PSCo’s ability to process the large load requests it has received in the past three years and is inconsistent with the SIS agreements PSCo is signing with large load applicants,” PUC staff said in a presentation.

One reason for the delays is that PSCo is short-staffed, PUC staff said, in part because employees who handled interconnection requests left for jobs with data center companies. Commissioner Tom Plant found “a little irony” in the situation.

Xcel Energy Responds

In an emailed statement, PSCo parent Xcel Energy acknowledged that large load customers have faced delays and uncertainty with their interconnection requests.

The company has been working over the past year to improve large load customer service. Measures include adding staff, hiring consultants, modernizing processes and collaborating more closely with customers.

But the improvements “will not solve everything,” Xcel said.

“Even with faster project studies and better communication, Xcel Energy cannot energize these customers without adding significant generation and transmission capacity to the grid that serves our communities,” the company said. “Over the past 18 months, the scale and speed of growth have outpaced what Colorado’s energy system was built to handle.”

Xcel is working with the PUC and stakeholders to bring new resources online. The company expects to file a large load tariff in early 2026.

“Customers need certainty to plan investments, and we support efforts to create fair, transparent rate structures that balance flexibility with affordability for all Coloradans,” Xcel said.

Customer Perspectives

As part of their research, PUC staff interviewed representatives of 13 companies and organizations that were current or prospective large load customers of the state’s PUC-regulated electric utilities: PSCo and Black Hills Colorado Electric. Interviewees were with data center companies or other industries with high power demand.

They suggested ways to streamline the interconnection queue and discourage speculative loads. Those included larger, nonrefundable study fees and, for data centers, proof of end user and developer track record.

On the topic of large load tariff design, customers were interested in an option to “bring your own generation” — either in front of or behind the meter.

Many said they’d consider flexible loads to speed up interconnection, especially if their load flexibility could be monetized.

Customers said they’d like to see more consistent large load processes within Colorado, as well as nationally.

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Idaho Power Can Retain Market-based Rate Authority, FERC Rules

Idaho Power can continue to sell power at market-based rates after it acquired more than 200 MW in resources in 2023 and 2024, FERC ruled Dec. 18.

The decision — which covers Idaho Power’s market-based rate authority (MBRA) in its own balancing authority area, first-tier markets and CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) — came after the Boise-based utility had submitted a series of change in status notices to report ownership of and control over new resources that came online during those years (ER10-2126 et al.).

Those filings, submitted in October 2023 and July 2024, reported that the utility added a net cumulative 211.8 MW of generation output after entering agreements to take power from two solar facilities and energizing — and then expanding — its Hemingway standalone battery storage facility.

Idaho Power explained that its own market power analysis showed that the utility still passed FERC’s pivotal supplier and wholesale market share screens for the WEIM and the utility’s adjacent first-tier markets, which include the Avista, Bonneville Power Administration, NorthWestern Energy, and PacifiCorp East and West BAAs.

But the analysis also showed Idaho Power failed wholesale market share screens in its own BAA in the winter, spring and fall, with market shares of 31.3, 41.8 and 30.3%, respectively. That put the utility well above FERC’s 20% threshold, prompting the commission to institute a Section 206 proceeding under the Federal Power Act to scrutinize the utility’s MBRA eligibility.

In allowing Idaho Power to retain its MBRA within its own BAA, FERC agreed with the utility’s contention that the commission should give more weight to the utility’s delivered price test (DPT) analyses rather than a sensitivity analysis based on activity at the Northwest’s Mid-C electricity trading hub.

The DPT analyses showed that, when Idaho Power’s obligation to serve its native load was taken into consideration, its “available economic capacity” — that is, energy available to be sold into the market — fell under the 20% market share threshold and the allowable threshold for market concentration of generation capacity as measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI).

“Because Idaho Power has native load obligations, we find that the available economic capacity measure more accurately captures conditions in the Idaho Power balancing authority area,” FERC wrote. “The October 2023 DPT and the July 2024 DPT show that, using the available economic capacity measure and based on [Electric Quarterly Report] prices and the Mid-C hub prices, Idaho Power’s base case analyses indicate that Idaho Power is not pivotal in any season. The base case analyses indicate that Idaho Power’s market share under the available economic capacity measure is below 20% in almost all season/load periods, and market concentration in those periods is below the commission’s HHI threshold of 2,500.”

FERC’s Dec. 18 order does not cover a separate Section 206 proceeding the commission instituted for Idaho Power in July 2025, after the utility filed a change in status notice showing the addition of 230 MW of generation (EL25-91). The commission expects to issue an order in that proceeding by early January. (See FERC Launches Section 206 Proceeding for Idaho Power.)