The early impacts of PJM's first capacity auction in three years began to emerge Thursday as Exelon reiterated plans to retire two of its nuclear plants.

CAISO’s CEO and four other top officials discussed the ISO’s handling of California’s mid-August blackouts and actions to head off future shortages in a webinar Wednesday hosted by the Clean Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for clean energy and grid modernization. The webinar was intended partly as a response to...

FERC on Tuesday found that Idaho Power had satisfied the commission’s standards for market-based rate authority and terminated a Section 206 proceeding it had ordered last September to find out if the utility was exercising market power in its balancing authority area (ER10-2126). The proceeding was meant to determine if...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. FERC on Wednesday reaffirmed its conclusion that bidding results in ISO-NE’s 2013/14 Winter Reliability Program were just and reasonable despite the fact that the largest participants may have had market power (ER13-2266-004). ISO-NE’s program offered compensation to demand response and generators able to burn oil to...

By Rich Heidorn Jr. FERC voted 2-1 on Friday to approve FirstEnergy Solutions’ plan to emerge from bankruptcy by allowing investment funds to convert secured and unsecured bond claims into a 50% equity stake (EC19-123). Avenue Capital Management will claim 15% and Nuveen Asset Management will acquire 35% of FES,...

By Hudson Sangree FOLSOM, Calif. — CAISO is moving ahead expeditiously with a plan to stem systemwide market power, even though not everyone is convinced the effort is necessary or needs to move so quickly. The project stems from analysis by CAISO staff and the ISO’s Department of Market Monitoring...

By Michael Kuser FERC on Thursday denied Public Citizen’s request for a rehearing of the commission’s September 2017 order granting market-based rate authority to Exelon’s James A. FitzPatrick nuclear power plant (ER17-2201-001). Public Citizen protested that Exelon’s application for MBRA was "incomplete, as it fails to incorporate the New York...

By Hudson Sangree FOLSOM, Calif. — CAISO’s Board of Governors on Wednesday unanimously approved a proposal meant to address concerns that the ISO’s market power mitigation rules disincentivize Pacific Northwest hydroelectric resources from participating in the Western Energy Imbalance Market. The concerns arose shortly after Canada-based Powerex joined the EIM...

By Hudson Sangree FERC on Thursday again rejected CAISO’s proposal to change the way generators register their capabilities with the ISO, denying rehearing on a plan the commission said could allow participants to withhold electricity and exercise market power (ER18-1169-002). CAISO currently requires participants to submit information about the operational...

By Michael Brooks WASHINGTON — FERC on Thursday proposed to exempt market participants in ISO-NE, MISO, NYISO and PJM from its indicative horizontal market power screens (RM19-2). Under the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued at the commission’s monthly open meeting, entities in the four regions would no longer be required...