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MISO released a work plan last week detailing how it and PJM will use the next six months to improve coordination of generation retirements. The RTOs’ cooperation on generator retirement studies was one of six directives mandated by FERC in an April order (EL13-88) that stemmed from a 2013 complaint...

By Robert Mullin CAISO transmission planning staff last week proposed studies on the implications of gas shortages on grid reliability. The planners outlined the studies in a June 13 stakeholder call, saying they will consider the risks to Northern California as well as the more vulnerable southern part of the...

Weak Auction Prompts Cap-and-Trade Concerns The state’s cap-and-trade system faces an uncertain future after just 11% of available carbon allowances were sold during last month’s quarterly auction, generating only 2% of expected revenues. Some analysts attribute the surplus of allowances to other state programs that effectively limit utilities’ emissions and...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. NEW YORK — Organized markets are being distorted because of policymakers’ failure to price carbon, two grid operator CEOs and a former FERC and state commissioner told a New York Energy Week audience last week. “I would say that in my … 16 years, this is...

Apple’s newly formed energy subsidiary has filed with FERC to begin selling wholesale power from its solar facilities in California and Nevada (ER16-1887). Apple Energy, formed on May 20 and headquartered in Delaware, asked FERC last week for market-based rate authority to offer capacity and other services, such as spinning...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. WASHINGTON — FERC has been asking questions about improving the transmission interconnection process for eight years. Quinn © RTO Insider “There will be a point where we stop asking questions,” FERC’s Arnie Quinn promised during a panel discussion at the Energy Bar Association’s Annual Meeting last...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. WASHINGTON — Four Ph.Ds. joined in a tag-team debate last week on the virtues of scarcity pricing versus capacity markets in a panel discussion-cum-economics seminar at the Energy Bar Association’s Annual Meeting. Hogan © RTO Insider It’s unlikely any of the combatants, who have often sparred...

By William Opalka NYISO has identified 10 proposed transmission projects as finalists to relieve congestion in western New York. The ISO issued a report last week in response to a 2015 New York Public Service Commission order that said relieving transmission congestion in the Buffalo area would produce environmental and...

About 43% of the nation’s 2,758 electric power generation “establishments” are renewable sites, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns report. More than half of the renewable locations are in the 10 states in green. However, only 13% of the electricity produced in the U.S. during 2015 came...

By Amanda Durish Cook INDIANAPOLIS — FERC last week accepted a generation interconnection agreement between MISO and the first utility-scale battery storage project in the footprint. The commission approved a GIA for Indianapolis Power & Light’s Harding Street Station Battery Energy Storage System, which is planned to go online this...