By Amanda Durish Cook FERC has brushed aside a complaint brought forward by two companies about Ameren Illinois’ annual informational formula rate update and true-up (ER16-1169). In April, Southwestern Electric Cooperative and Southern Illinois Power Cooperative challenged the $214.4 million revenue requirement rate filing on several fronts. Although FERC agreed...

By Amanda Durish Cook CARMEL, Ind. — MISO will file a revised set of interconnection queue changes with FERC on Oct. 21, and this time it says it has “overwhelming” stakeholder support for the changes. Aliff © RTO Insider In its second attempt at a queue reform filing, MISO proposed...

By Michael Brooks and Rich Heidorn Jr. WASHINGTON — FERC on Thursday approved a NERC reliability standard requiring grid operators to assess and protect against the threat of geomagnetic disturbances (RM15-11). The final rule (Order 830), effective 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register, is nearly identical to...

By Robert Mullin CAISO paid congestion revenue rights holders $27 million more than it took in from CRR auctions during the first half of the year, according to the ISO’s Department of Market Monitoring. That equates to 63 cents in auction revenues for every dollar paid out, leaving California electricity...

By Rory D. Sweeney VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — A power-flow analysis indicates a reduced version of the current flow pattern is the most reliable resolution when the Con Ed-PSEG ‘wheel’ ends on April 30, PJM and NYISO officials said last week. The grid operators are recommending an “operational base flow” that...

By Robert Mullin CAISO last week released a final draft proposal to expand the definition of a “load-serving entity” to include organizations purchasing wholesale power to serve their own needs. The ISO’s latest draft seeks to address market participants’ concerns that the wording of the initial proposal could subject them...

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — PJM will add a new section to its Operating Agreement specifying that substation equipment issues that can be solved by transmission owner upgrades are excluded from Order 1000 competitive windows, PJM’s Mark Sims told the Planning Committee last week. The usual solution to an overload of...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Stuart Nachmias, president of New York Transco, said that New York’s plan to build as much as 1,000 miles of new transmission to accommodate renewables and meet its emission targets will be “a marathon, not a sprint.” NY Transco, a joint venture of Consolidated Edison, Avangrid,...

By Robert Mullin The Valley Electric Association board of directors last week approved an agreement to sell the cooperative’s 230-kV transmission network to GridLiance for about $200 million. The transaction, which still requires approval by two-thirds of Valley Electric’s members, is slated to close in late 2016 or early 2017.

By Robert Mullin FERC last week approved Macquarie Energy’s request to revise its market-based rate tariff to allow the company to engage in short-term simultaneous transactions along a key Pacific Northwest transmission system partly controlled by Puget Sound Energy — a Macquarie affiliate (ER16-2198). The commission’s decision enables Macquarie to...