Power & Pipes

FERC has provided specific, detailed guidance for the first time on the use of voting trusts to eliminate ownership affiliation.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed and settled charges on October 24 against Upstream Energy Services LLC (Upstream Energy) for acting as an unregistered futures commission merchant. The Commission’s order raises several important points for energy companies.

FERC recently issued a pair of orders approving the electric storage market participation proposals of PJM Interconnection, Inc. (PJM) and Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (SPP). PJM and SPP submitted those proposals to comply with the directives of Order No. 841, FERC’s final rule addressing the participation of electric storage resources in the capacity, energy, and ancillary service markets operated by independent system operators and regional transmission organizations.

President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders on October 9 that may limit the impact of an agency’s use of informal guidance documents.

Morgan Lewis energy partner Ken Kulak takes a look at the role of regulation in defining the future of energy storage in Energy Policy Now, a podcast produced by the University of Pennsylvania Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

FERC Staff issued an October 4 report on Commission-led critical infrastructure protection (CIP) reliability audits completed during fiscal year 2019. The report provides lessons learned and identifies voluntary practices that FERC Staff observed during those audits that could improve the protection of electric infrastructure from cyberattacks.

In October 2018, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed into law Act 120 of 2018 (Act 120), which grants the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PaPUC) additional authority to support investor-owned water utilities’ efforts to protect Pennsylvania residents from lead entering their drinking water from customer-owned lead service lines. On October 3, the PaPUC, in its first exercise of this authority, approved Pennsylvania-American Water Company’s (PAWC’s) comprehensive plan for replacing customer-owned lead service lines in its service territory and established a working group to develop recommendations for the uniform implementation of Act 120 by all water companies in the commonwealth.

Interest in microgrids is on the rise in the United States as over half of states explore ways to modernize the grid and promote distributed energy resources (DER), including innovative renewable energy, storage, and demand response technologies. However, microgrids are not defined by law or regulation in most states and are more complex than other types of DER because they involve both the generation and distribution of energy.

President Donald Trump announced on Monday his intention to nominate FERC General Counsel James Danly to fill the remaining Republican position at FERC. That position has been vacant since the untimely passing of former Chairman Kevin McIntyre.

FERC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) on September 19 announcing its intent to revise key rules governing the status and rights of Qualifying Facilities (QFs). These revisions include proposed changes to the rules for measuring QF size that could make it more difficult for certain projects to maintain QF status.