The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will launch a review its administration of the 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, chairman Kevin McIntyre announced at today’s monthly open meeting. The new initiative, he said, reflects the major changes in the electricity industry in recent years.
It also comes, McIntyre noted, as FERC now earlier policy reviews – including the politically-charged “resilience” inquiry – well in hand. “I have an open mind and am not foreshadowing whether we need to make or not make” changes to FERC’s rules implementing the law.
The other commissioners agreed with McIntyre’s move to review PURPA. Cheryl LaFleur pointed out that the commission took a look at the law in 2015-2016, including a 2016 technical conference. She is the only current commissioner who was on the commission at the time of that earlier inquiry. Commissioners Neil Chatterjee and Robert Powelson praised the decision to review PURPA, and both stressed that the review should be “expedited.”
Commissioner Richard Glick, who said he attended the 2016 technical conference as staff for the Senate Energy Committee, reminded FERC that PURPA is law and major changes must come from Congress.
The electric utility industry this year has mounted an effort to persuade FERC to take a detailed look at PURPA. The Edison Electric Institute, the American Public Power Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners have all endorsed significant changes to PURPA.
There has also been an industry push for new PURPA legislation. At the end of November last year, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) introduced a bill, H.R. 4476, the “PURPA Modernization Act of 2017,” that would accomplish those goals. The bill had five Republican co-sponsors and was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee’s energy subcommittee.
The solar industry is troubled by potentially major changes to PURPA. Renewable energy policy consultant Ben Inskeep said, “The so-called PURPA ‘modernization’ act, H.R. 4476, appears to be a big step backwards for solar and other renewable energy projects.” He said the legislation would make it “harder for independent renewable energy developers to compete on a level playing field with powerful electric utilities.”
FERC this morning also approved a new notice of proposed rulemaking on a reliability standard for transmission performance during geomagnetic storms. This has been an area of LaFleur’s interest for several years.
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. developed the new standard in response to an earlier FERC order. FERC called on NERC to revise its definition of a geomagnetic disturbance (GMD), monitor and collect magnetometer data on geomagnetically-induced currents, and set a one-year deadline for corrective action plans and two-year and four-year deadlines to complete mitigation actions called for in corrective action plans. The proposed rule follows the earlier FERC order closely. A staff presentation on the proposed rule in available on the FERC website.
— Kennedy Maize