Transmission Professionals Group
The Transmission Professionals special interest group covers the distribution of power from generation to final destination.
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Commissioner Clements
There is a new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Allison Clements.
Worth noting that Commissioner Clements is at FERC during this time of prominent Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) filings that come FERC's way, including - compliance plans for RTOs on their Distributed Energy Resource Aggregation Order 2222, renewed interest and aspirations of FERC Order 841, PJM's capacity market results following years of turmoil with Minimum Offer Pricing Rule (MOPR), ISO-NE's continued focus on solving natural gas constraints, and just started PJM's Generator Interconnection queue reform process.
FERC can give DERs a fair shake at each RTO. RTOs have to take state policy inputs, no doubt about that. But they also have to run efficiently energy markets and in a transparent manner without any preference to any individual market participant. In other words, I expect FERC and FERC jurisdictional RTOs to give the same reliability treatment to transmission owners and transmission developers alike. I also want distribution utilities and third party aggregators to be treated alike.
In short here is my wish list for new FERC:
1) I want FERC to allow more competition in transmission projects including baseline reliability projects. FERC should not let states put up a barrier called Right of First Refusal, that basically allows state regulatory authorities to prefer incumbent transmission owners.
2) FERC should closely monitor DERA Order 2222 from RTOs. I want FERC to dig into the details on RTO compliance plans.
3) FERC should also look at ancillary services settled at transmission settlements not market settlements. One example is, reactive support and voltage control.
4) FERC should watch for any bias towards utility-scale renewable projects either from RTOs or Transmission Owners. Here, small generator interconnection projects should have a fair shake in the interconnection queue. Yes, small generators need to be studied too! However, do we really need a $100,000 voltage stability study for a 5 MW solar project request?
Commissioner Clements's term ends in 2024. I personally look forward to continued achievements from her and her team at FERC.
I sincerely hope that regulatory policy takes center stage and political stuff takes back seat.
Commissioner Clements
Allison Clements has two decades of public and private sector experience in energy regulation and policy, representing utilities, independent power producers, developers and lenders, nonprofits and philanthropies on grid policy issues.
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