Dissenting from last week’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on distributed energy resources, Commissioner James Danly said the regulators went “too far in declaring the extent of its own jurisdiction and because the commission should not encourage resource development by fiat.”
Danly, who was FERC general counsel before appointed to a Republican vacancy, argued that FERC is micromanaging the wholesale markets it oversees, when that should be the role of the states and the market. “We should allow the RTOs and ISOs (or states or the utilities) to develop their own DER programs in the first instance. If the promises of DERs are what they purport to be, the markets will encourage their development. And if those programs result in wholesale sales in interstate commerce, then the question of the commission’s jurisdiction will be ripe. Commission directives are unnecessary to encourage the development of economically-viable resources. I have greater faith in the power of market forces and in the discernment of the utilities and the states.”
In short, Danly argues that FERC should stay in its lane.
The 2-1 vote to approved the new rule showed in interesting partisan split, unusual at FERC over the past three years. Republican chairman Neil Chatterjee and Democratic commissioner Richard Glick voted for the 290-page order while Republican Danly voted no. Danly’s dissent in attached to the end of the order.
— Kennedy Maize