July 2016 – Global Power Law & Policy

Puget Sound Energy Reports to the Washington UTC on the Progress of its Efforts to Join the CAISO Energy Imbalance Market; CAISO Releases Study Chronicling Benefits of a Regional Energy Market

Jul 28 2016

Puget Sound Energy (“PSE”) recently presented to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (“WUTC”) regarding the steps it is taking to join the California-based Energy Imbalance Market (“EIM”) this coming fall. WUTC Docket No. 151425 (July 20, 2016). The EIM is a new energy market overseen by the California state energy balancing authority – the California Independent System Operator (“CAISO”) – that came online in November 2014. It is intended to increase reliability and other benefits for affected costumers by coordinating the dispatch of energy generation and transmission from utilities across an expanded geographic footprint that is expected to encompass significant portions of eight western states by the end 2018. As of the end of the second quarter this year, CAISO estimates that the EIM has resulted in a $65 million gross benefit for its participants to-date.

FERC Issues Rule Requiring Wind Generators to Provide Reactive Power as a Condition of Interconnection

Jul 05 2016

By Ben Tejblum and William Keyser

On June 16, 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the “Commission”) issued Order No. 827, which establishes reactive power requirements for all new non-synchronous generation (the “Rule”).[1] Specifically, the Rule revises the Commission’s pro forma Large Generator Interconnection Agreement (“LGIA”) and pro forma Small Generator Interconnection Agreement (“SGIA”) to require that newly interconnecting non-synchronous generators, including wind generators, provide dynamic reactive power pursuant to the terms of their interconnection agreements. The Rule is the result of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing reactive power requirements that was issued by the Commission last November.

Archive:July 2016