Articles by Michael Brooks

The Coalition of MISO Transmission Customers (CMTC) has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider its approval of a 50-basis-point incentive adder for MISO membership. FERC conditionally approved the adder last month, saying that the resulting base return on equity must be in the zone of reasonableness — 7.03...

By Michael Brooks PJM says critics of its requests to safeguard capacity for the 2015/16 delivery year ignored the context of its filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Fearing that it might run short due to retirements of coal-fired generation, PJM asked for a one-time waiver on rules that...

Electric cooperatives operate in 93 of North Carolina's 100 counties. The North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. is protesting a request by Dominion Resources to push back the effective date for a rate revision by more than a year. Last April, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Dominion’s request for revised...

MISO set a new wind generation record Dec. 31 — and then broke it little more than a week later on Jan. 8. The new record is 11.9 GW. The record before this winter was 10.7 GW. Wind was responsible for 6% of MISO’s energy in December. (Click to zoom.)...

By Michael Brooks Wagner A Virginia Senate subcommittee has passed a bill that would freeze Dominion Virginia Power customers’ base rates and bar state regulators from reviewing the utility’s revenue until after 2020. The bill, SB1349, is among the most controversial in a group of bills introduced by Virginia lawmakers...

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order to show cause against Maxim Power yesterday, telling the Canadian independent power producer to explain why it shouldn’t have to pay a $5 million fine for allegedly misrepresenting the output of three of its generators in ISO-NE (IN15-4). FERC says that in...

By Michael Brooks FERC Chairman Cheryl LaFleur The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will have a vital role in implementing the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emission rules but won’t take sides in ideological debates over the regulations, Chairman Cheryl LaFleur said last week. “People both for and against the Clean...

By Michael Brooks Environmental activists celebrated their successful forced recess of FERC's open meeting last week. (Source: PopularResistance.org) WASHINGTON — Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Cheryl LaFleur called an unscheduled recess to the commission’s monthly open meeting Thursday due to a series of interruptions by protesters from environmental group Beyond...

Refinery Files for Permit to Build $100 million Hydrogen Plant PBF Energy, owners of the state’s only refinery, is seeking permission to build a $100 million hydrogen plant as part of a plan to begin refining ultra-low sulfur fuel at the Delaware City facility. PBF applied to the Department of Natural...

NYISO last week asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to exempt competitive transmission, including the Champlain Hudson project, from the ISO’s buyer-side mitigation rules. The ISO and other stakeholders filed comments last week in response to a December complaint by transmission owners, who said NYISO’s market power rules are being...