On November 15, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Office of Enforcement issued their 12^th annual report on enforcement. As in previous years, the Office of Enforcement will maintain its focus on the threats “posed by fraud and market manipulation in wholesale energy markets” in order to ensure that this kind of conduct does “not undermine FERC’s goal of ensuring efficient energy services at reasonable cost or erode confidence in those markets to the detriment of consumers and competitors.”

The report highlights FERC’s focus on fraud and market manipulation, conduct that threatens the regulated markets transparency, serious violations of mandatory Reliability Standards, and anticompetitive conduct. The Report follows the trend from previous years, of providing the public with information about “the nature of non-public enforcement activities,” like surveillance inquiries, self-reported violations, and investigations that had been closed without enforcement action in the public.

During the presentation about the Report, FERC was informed that “the Report summarizes audits, market reports, litigation filings, and settlements which were approved by the Commission.” The Office of Enforcement said that the summaries are available to help any companies that are seeking to comply with FERC’s orders and regulations. The individuals and companies whose conduct was reviewed in this report were not identified in order to maintain confidentiality.

During the 2018 Fiscal Year, FERC approved six different settlements between Enforcement and subjects in order to resolve different matters. These settlements totaled about $83 million in civil penalties and $66 million in disgorgement. More information on this was included in the Report.

Some of the highlights of Enforcement Report include:

• “Investigations staff opened 24 new investigations and closed 23 pending investigations with no action. Additionally, staff negotiated six settlements that resulted in more than $83 million in civil penalties and disgorgement of more than $66 million in unjust profits. These Commission-approved settlements included provisions requiring the subjects to enhance their compliance programs and periodically report back to Enforcement regarding the results of those enhancements.
• Audits and Accounting staff completed 14 audits of oil pipelines, electric utilities and natural gas companies, resulting in 209 recommendations for corrective action and directing refunds and recoveries totaling more than $185 million. Additionally, DAA advised and acted on 435 proceedings at the Commission covering various accounting matters with cost-of-service rate implications.
• Market Oversight staff continued its analysis of market fundamentals, and enhanced its capabilities for identifying anticompetitive market outcomes and anomalies that may indicate an exercise of market power. Market Oversight published its 2017 State of the Markets Report and Seasonal Assessment reports. It also held two Electric Quarterly Report user group meetings to discuss potential system improvements and enhancements.
• Analytics and Surveillance staff reviewed numerous instances of potential misconduct and provided analytical expertise to Investigations staff in approximately 50 investigations. Natural gas surveillance screens produced approximately 7,719 alerts. Each month Analytics and Surveillance staff ran and reviewed 84 electric surveillance screens, hourly and intra-hour sub-screens, and reports for more than 36,000 hubs and pricing nodes within six regional transmission owner and independent system operator regions.”

On November 14, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced that it has begun implementing the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump on October 23. According to sections 3003 and 3004 of the Act, FERC must issue new rules to establish an expedited process for issuing and amending licenses for already existing non-powered dams and closed-loop pumped storage projects. FERC says the processes have to seek a final decision from them within two years of the receipt of a completed application.

The Act will help speed up the process of licensing and re-licensing for different hydropower projects. The bill can also expand some hydropower projects from a limit of five megawatts to 40 megawatts.

“There are a lot of hydropower projects coming up on relicensing — about a third of the fleet — so as these projects come up to be relicensed, it’s really important that we reduce the amount of regulatory burden to accelerate a timely relicensing process,” said Justin Ong, a policy associate with Clearpath, a Washington-based organization dedicated to advancing conservative-based clean energy policies.

“Giving our utilities the flexibility to better plan ahead will keep our energy sources safe and save taxpayers money,” Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington said in a statement about the hydropower provisions.

According to the release in the Federal Register, “the Commission has established three dockets in order to implement the requirements of the Act: RM19-6-000 (Licensing Regulations under America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018); AD19-7-000 (Nonpowered Dams List); and AD19-8-000 (Closed-loop Pumped Storage Projects at Abandoned Mines Guidance).”

FERC released a schedule for the implementation of the Act, which plans for a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the expedited licensing process in early 2019 and for a final rule to be made in April 2019. They have also planned for a workshop on the closed-loop pump storage projects that are in abandoned mining sites, which is scheduled to be held in February 2019; FERC’s guidance on this should be issued in September 2019.

FERC will also be providing, in April 2019 a draft list of the already existing non-powered dams that have the greatest potential for non-federal development; they will have a finalized list in August 2019. According to the Energy Department, only three percent of the dams in the United States are currently electric; outfitting these already existing dams could help states meet the mandates for clean and renewable energy.

“In [Indiana’s] 8th Congressional District alone, there are six nonpowered dams that could be modernized to produce clean energy,” Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., said when the House passed the water projects bill in September.

The Act also requires FERC to convene an interagency task force in order to coordinate the different regulatory processes that require authorization for the new processes; the coordination session will be held on December 12. Some of the agencies that will be joining the task force session include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, the U.S. Forest Service, five Indian tribes, and various state agencies.

“Without question, this water infrastructure package is a win for America,” said FERC committee leaders. “It… promotes hydropower development, which creates clean energy jobs here at home and provides consumers with low-cost, emissions-free electricity. We applaud the Senate for passing this vital legislation and urge President Trump to sign it into law soon.”

On November 15, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued guidance on how pending cases are going to be affected by a recent order that proposed using a “new approach for calculating the allowed Return on Equity (ROE) to have it be included in the rates of transmission owners” in New England. These new orders were voted on at FERC’s meeting on October 16.

The first order established a paper hearing to two parties involved in ongoing proceedings regarding the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (MISO) transmission-owning members to submit briefs concerning FERC’s new approach to determining the base ROE. The order proposes to change the approach for determining ROE by giving four financial models equal weight, as opposed to relying on the discounted cash flow methodology that FERC had been using.

With these new policies, FERC is abandoning its old two-step discounted cash flow methodology that was issued in Opinion No.531, saying they need to stop using that methodology exclusively, and will instead be using the new, broader model to give everything equal weight.

FERC says that by using a wider range of evidence to determine base ROE, their decisions will now be more closely aligned with how investors make their decisions on investments. This order is similar to the Coakley Briefing Order in that it will not make any changes to the new methodology, it instead will help ensure that everyone in these proceedings gets an opportunity to present their arguments and evidence on determining base ROE.

FERC has also essentially raised the burden of proof for a Section 206 proceeding.

During this discussion, FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee said they plan to consider if additional changes are needed for its transmission incentives and calculation of base ROE. Chatterjee said it was “high time” to see if FERC’s ROE and incentive policies are producing “the level and type of transmission investment the nation needs.”

“FERC needs to stay laser-focused on adopting and enforcing policies that ensure reasonable transmission rates. This especially applies to making sure equity returns included in transmission rates are not excessive,” said Delia Patterson, senior vice president and general counsel at the American Public Power Association.

The second order gave some additional guidance on the effects of the Coakley Briefing Order in regard to any pending proceedings about base ROE that are already set for hearing and settlement procedures. FERC said in this order that in these types of proceedings it expects the parties involved to address the new methodology that is proposed in the Coakley Briefing Order. This includes presenting evidence based on the new methodology how to apply the new methodology to the facts in these proceedings.

According to FERC’s presentation, “The Coakley Briefing Order addressed issues that the D.C. Circuit remanded to the Commission in Emera Maine v. FERC, related to the New England Transmission Owners’ base ROE as provided for in the ISO New England tariff, which the Commission approved in Opinion No. 531.”

FERC’s new policies are based on the hope that by raising transmission owners’ ROEs, they will encourage some desperately needed investments to respond to changes in the transmission business. They need transmissions to be expanded so they can connect new renewable energy and may affect “how particular resources provide services to the grid and the relative competitiveness of various types of generators.”

Climate activists and transmission owners alike can attest to the importance of bringing more green energy onto the power grid, and the new ROE methodology might help make this happened. During the October meeting where this was voted on, Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur suggested that FERC intends to apply this new policy fairly broadly.

“FERC had coordinated its approaches to determining transmission and pipeline ROEs under the one-stepDCF methodology in the past, it is entirely plausible that FERC will synchronize its ROE methodology for pipelines with the Coakley 2018 proposal soon.”