18 CFR 35.35 - Transmission infrastructure investment.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) amends its regulations to change the process for filing Electric Quarterly Reports (EQR). Due to technology changes that will render the current filing process outmoded, ineffective, and unsustainable, the Commission will discontinue the use of Commission-distributed software to file an EQR. Instead, the Commission adopts a web-based approach to filing EQRs that will allow a public or non-public utility to file an EQR directly through the Commission's Web site, either through a web interface or by submitting an Extensible Mark-Up Language-formatted file. By adopting a process with two options for filing EQRs, the Commission seeks to provide the flexibility needed to accommodate a public or non-public utility's technical preference. The Commission also requires a public or non-public utility to identify itself with a company identification number rather than the existing software-based EQR identifier. The changes to the process for filing EQRs will apply to EQR filings beginning with the third quarter 2013 EQR, which will provide data for July through September 2013.

The Commission issues this policy statement to provide guidance regarding its evaluation of applications for electric transmission incentives under section 219 of the Federal Power Act. In the six years since the Commission implemented section 219 by issuing Order No. 679, the Commission has acted on numerous applications for transmission incentives. The Commission has now determined it would be beneficial to provide additional guidance and clarity with respect to certain aspects of its transmission incentives policies under section 219 of the Federal Power Act and Order No. 679. In particular, the Commission: reframes its nexus test to focus more directly on the requirements of Order No. 679; expects applicants to take all reasonable steps to mitigate the risks of a project, including requesting those incentives designed to reduce the risk of a project, before seeking an incentive return on equity (ROE) based on a project's risks and challenges; provides general guidance that may inform applications for an incentive ROE based on a project's risks and challenges; and promotes additional transparency with respect to the impacts of the Commission's incentives policies. The Commission finds that the additional guidance provided through this policy statement is necessary to encourage transmission infrastructure investment while maintaining just and reasonable rates, consistent with section 219 of the Federal Power Act. The Commission will apply this policy statement on a prospective basis to incentive applications received after the date of its issuance.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is correcting a final rule that appeared in the Federal Register of October 29, 2012 (77 FR 65463). In this final rule, the Commission is revising its rules and regulations relating to the filing of privileged material in keeping with the Commission's efforts to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Government Paperwork Elimination Act and the E-Government Act of 2002.

In this Final Rule, the Commission revises its rules and regulations relating to the filing of privileged material in keeping with the Commission's efforts to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Government Paperwork Elimination Act and the E-Government Act of 2002. First, the Commission establishes two categories of privileged material for filing purposes: Privileged material and critical energy infrastructure information. This revision will expand the ability to file electronically by permitting electronic filing of materials subject to Administrative Law Judge protective orders as appropriate. Second, the Commission revises its regulations to provide a single set of uniform procedures for filing privileged materials. These revisions continue the Commission's effort to reassess and streamline its regulations to ensure that they are efficient, effective and up to date. Also, the Commission revises Rule 213(d) of its Rules of Practice and Procedure, which establishes the timeline for filing answers to motions, to clarify that the standard fifteen day reply time will not apply to motions requesting an extension of time or a shortened time period for action. Instead, the Commission proposes to set the time for responding to such motions at five days, unless another time period is established by notice based on the circumstances.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission affirms its basic determinations in Order Nos. 1000 and 1000-A, amending the transmission planning and cost allocation requirements established in Order No. 890 to ensure that Commission-jurisdictional services are provided at just and reasonable rates and on a basis that is just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential. This order affirms the Order No. 1000 transmission planning reforms that: Require that each public utility transmission provider participate in a regional transmission planning process that produces a regional transmission plan; provide that local and regional transmission planning processes must provide an opportunity to identify and evaluate transmission needs driven by public policy requirements established by state or federal laws or regulations; improve coordination between neighboring transmission planning regions for new interregional transmission facilities; and remove from Commission-approved tariffs and agreements a federal right of first refusal. This order also affirms the Order No. 1000 requirements that each public utility transmission provider must participate in a regional transmission planning process that has: A regional cost allocation method for the cost of new transmission facilities selected in a regional transmission plan for purposes of cost allocation and an interregional cost allocation method for the cost of new transmission facilities that are located in two neighboring transmission planning regions and are jointly evaluated by the two regions in the interregional transmission coordination process required by this Final Rule. Additionally, this order affirms the Order No. 1000 requirement that each cost allocation method must satisfy six cost allocation principles.

The Commission is revising its regulations pursuant to section 220 of the Federal Power Act (FPA), as enacted by section 1281 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005), to facilitate price transparency in markets for the sale and transmission of electric energy in interstate commerce. In doing so, the Commission revises its regulations to require market participants that are excluded from the Commission's jurisdiction under FPA section 205 and have more than a de minimis market presence to file Electric Quarterly Reports (EQR) with the Commission. In addition, the Commission revises the existing EQR filing requirements applicable to market participants in the interstate wholesale electric markets by adding new fields for: reporting the trade date and the type of rate; identifying the exchange used for a sales transaction, if applicable; reporting whether a broker was used to consummate a transaction; reporting electronic tag (e-Tag) ID data; and reporting standardized prices and quantities for energy, capacity and booked out power transactions. The Commission also requires EQR filers to indicate in the existing ID data section whether they report their sales transactions to an index publisher and, if so, to which index publisher(s), and, if applicable, identify which types of transactions are reported. The Commission also eliminates the time zone from the contract section and the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) data requirement. These refinements to the existing EQR filing requirements reflect the evolving nature of interstate wholesale electric markets, will increase market transparency for the Commission and the public, and will allow market participants to file the information in the most efficient manner possible.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is amending the pro forma Open Access Transmission Tariff to remove unduly discriminatory practices and to ensure just and reasonable rates for Commission-jurisdictional services. Specifically, this Final Rule removes barriers to the integration of variable energy resources by requiring each public utility transmission provider to: offer intra-hourly transmission scheduling; and, incorporate provisions into the pro forma Large Generator Interconnection Agreement requiring interconnection customers whose generating facilities are variable energy resources to provide meteorological and forced outage data to the public utility transmission provider for the purpose of power production forecasting.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission affirms its basic determinations in Order No. 1000, amending the transmission planning and cost allocation requirements established in Order No. 890 to ensure that Commission-jurisdictional services are provided at just and reasonable rates and on a basis that is just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential. This order affirms the Order No. 1000 transmission planning reforms that: Require that each public utility transmission provider participate in a regional transmission planning process that produces a regional transmission plan; provide that local and regional transmission planning processes must provide an opportunity to identify and evaluate transmission needs driven by public policy requirements established by state or federal laws or regulations; improve coordination between neighboring transmission planning regions for new interregional transmission facilities; and remove from Commission-approved tariffs and agreements a federal right of first refusal. This order also affirms the Order No. 1000 requirements that each public utility transmission provider must participate in a regional transmission planning process that has: A regional cost allocation method for the cost of new transmission facilities selected in a regional transmission plan for purposes of cost allocation and an interregional cost allocation method for the cost of new transmission facilities that are located in two neighboring transmission planning regions and are jointly evaluated by the two regions in the interregional transmission coordination process required by this Final Rule. Additionally, this order affirms the Order No. 1000 requirement that each cost allocation method must satisfy six cost allocation principles.

In this final rule, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) is amending its regulations to require each regional transmission organization (RTO) and independent system operator (ISO) to electronically deliver to the Commission, on an ongoing basis, data related to the markets that it administers. Specifically, the Commission is amending its regulations to establish ongoing electronic delivery of data relating to physical and virtual offers and bids, market awards, resource outputs, marginal cost estimates, shift factors, financial transmission rights, internal bilateral contracts, uplift, and interchange pricing. Such data will facilitate the Commission's development and evaluation of its policies and regulations and will enhance Commission efforts to detect anti-competitive or manipulative behavior, or ineffective market rules, thereby helping to ensure just and reasonable rates.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) is proposing to revise the pro forma Small Generator Interconnection Procedures (SGIP) and pro forma Small Generator Interconnection Agreement (SGIA) originally set forth in Order No. 2006. The pro forma SGIP and SGIA establish the terms and conditions under which public utilities must provide interconnection service to Small Generating Facilities of no more than 20 megawatts (MW). In this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR), the Commission proposes to modify the pro forma SGIP to: (1) Incorporate provisions that would provide an Interconnection Customer with the option of requesting from the Transmission Provider a pre-application report providing existing information about system conditions at a possible Point of Interconnection; (2) revise the 2 MW threshold for participation in the Fast Track Process included in section 2 of the pro forma SGIP; (3) revise the customer options meeting and the supplemental review following failure of the Fast Track screens so that the supplemental review is performed at the discretion of the Interconnection Customer and includes minimum load and other screens to determine if a Small Generating Facility may be interconnected safely and reliably; and (4) revise the pro forma SGIP Facilities Study Agreement to allow the Interconnection Customer the opportunity to provide written comments to the Transmission Provider on the upgrades required for interconnection. The Commission also proposes to clarify or correct certain sections of the pro forma SGIP and SGIA. The proposed reforms are intended to ensure that the time and cost to process small generator interconnect requests will be just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory. To facilitate discussion of the proposed reforms, the Commission intends to hold a workshop at which stakeholders may discuss the proposals made in this NOPR. The workshop is to be held before the end of the comment period.

The Commission issues this final policy statement to clarify and refine its policies governing the allocation of capacity for new merchant transmission projects and new nonincumbent, cost-based, participant-funded transmission projects. Under this policy statement, the Commission will allow developers of such projects to select a subset of customers, based on not unduly discriminatory or preferential criteria, and negotiate directly with those customers to reach agreement on the key rates, terms, and conditions for procuring up to the full amount of transmission capacity, when the developers broadly solicit interest in the project from potential customers, and demonstrate to the Commission that the developer has satisfied the solicitation, selection and negotiation process criteria set forth herein. The Commission is making these clarifications and refinements to fulfill its statutory responsibility of preventing undue discrimination and undue preference while providing developers the ability to bilaterally negotiate rates, terms, and conditions for the full amount of transmission capacity with potential customers. These clarifications and refinements will be implemented within the Commission's existing four-factor analysis used to evaluate requests for negotiated rate authority for transmission service. The Commission will apply this policy statement on a prospective basis to filings received after this issuance.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) amends its regulations to change the process for filing Electric Quarterly Reports (EQR). Due to technology changes that will render the current filing process outmoded, ineffective, and unsustainable, the Commission will discontinue the use of Commission-distributed software to file an EQR. Instead, the Commission adopts a web-based approach to filing EQRs that will allow a public or non-public utility to file an EQR directly through the Commission's Web site, either through a web interface or by submitting an Extensible Mark-Up Language-formatted file. By adopting a process with two options for filing EQRs, the Commission seeks to provide the flexibility needed to accommodate a public or non-public utility's technical preference. The Commission also requires a public or non-public utility to identify itself with a company identification number rather than the existing software-based EQR identifier. The changes to the process for filing EQRs will apply to EQR filings beginning with the third quarter 2013 EQR, which will provide data for July through September 2013.

The Commission issues this policy statement to provide guidance regarding its evaluation of applications for electric transmission incentives under section 219 of the Federal Power Act. In the six years since the Commission implemented section 219 by issuing Order No. 679, the Commission has acted on numerous applications for transmission incentives. The Commission has now determined it would be beneficial to provide additional guidance and clarity with respect to certain aspects of its transmission incentives policies under section 219 of the Federal Power Act and Order No. 679. In particular, the Commission: reframes its nexus test to focus more directly on the requirements of Order No. 679; expects applicants to take all reasonable steps to mitigate the risks of a project, including requesting those incentives designed to reduce the risk of a project, before seeking an incentive return on equity (ROE) based on a project's risks and challenges; provides general guidance that may inform applications for an incentive ROE based on a project's risks and challenges; and promotes additional transparency with respect to the impacts of the Commission's incentives policies. The Commission finds that the additional guidance provided through this policy statement is necessary to encourage transmission infrastructure investment while maintaining just and reasonable rates, consistent with section 219 of the Federal Power Act. The Commission will apply this policy statement on a prospective basis to incentive applications received after the date of its issuance.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is correcting a final rule that appeared in the Federal Register of October 29, 2012 (77 FR 65463). In this final rule, the Commission is revising its rules and regulations relating to the filing of privileged material in keeping with the Commission's efforts to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Government Paperwork Elimination Act and the E-Government Act of 2002.

In this Final Rule, the Commission revises its rules and regulations relating to the filing of privileged material in keeping with the Commission's efforts to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Government Paperwork Elimination Act and the E-Government Act of 2002. First, the Commission establishes two categories of privileged material for filing purposes: Privileged material and critical energy infrastructure information. This revision will expand the ability to file electronically by permitting electronic filing of materials subject to Administrative Law Judge protective orders as appropriate. Second, the Commission revises its regulations to provide a single set of uniform procedures for filing privileged materials. These revisions continue the Commission's effort to reassess and streamline its regulations to ensure that they are efficient, effective and up to date. Also, the Commission revises Rule 213(d) of its Rules of Practice and Procedure, which establishes the timeline for filing answers to motions, to clarify that the standard fifteen day reply time will not apply to motions requesting an extension of time or a shortened time period for action. Instead, the Commission proposes to set the time for responding to such motions at five days, unless another time period is established by notice based on the circumstances.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission affirms its basic determinations in Order Nos. 1000 and 1000-A, amending the transmission planning and cost allocation requirements established in Order No. 890 to ensure that Commission-jurisdictional services are provided at just and reasonable rates and on a basis that is just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential. This order affirms the Order No. 1000 transmission planning reforms that: Require that each public utility transmission provider participate in a regional transmission planning process that produces a regional transmission plan; provide that local and regional transmission planning processes must provide an opportunity to identify and evaluate transmission needs driven by public policy requirements established by state or federal laws or regulations; improve coordination between neighboring transmission planning regions for new interregional transmission facilities; and remove from Commission-approved tariffs and agreements a federal right of first refusal. This order also affirms the Order No. 1000 requirements that each public utility transmission provider must participate in a regional transmission planning process that has: A regional cost allocation method for the cost of new transmission facilities selected in a regional transmission plan for purposes of cost allocation and an interregional cost allocation method for the cost of new transmission facilities that are located in two neighboring transmission planning regions and are jointly evaluated by the two regions in the interregional transmission coordination process required by this Final Rule. Additionally, this order affirms the Order No. 1000 requirement that each cost allocation method must satisfy six cost allocation principles.

The Commission is revising its regulations pursuant to section 220 of the Federal Power Act (FPA), as enacted by section 1281 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005), to facilitate price transparency in markets for the sale and transmission of electric energy in interstate commerce. In doing so, the Commission revises its regulations to require market participants that are excluded from the Commission's jurisdiction under FPA section 205 and have more than a de minimis market presence to file Electric Quarterly Reports (EQR) with the Commission. In addition, the Commission revises the existing EQR filing requirements applicable to market participants in the interstate wholesale electric markets by adding new fields for: reporting the trade date and the type of rate; identifying the exchange used for a sales transaction, if applicable; reporting whether a broker was used to consummate a transaction; reporting electronic tag (e-Tag) ID data; and reporting standardized prices and quantities for energy, capacity and booked out power transactions. The Commission also requires EQR filers to indicate in the existing ID data section whether they report their sales transactions to an index publisher and, if so, to which index publisher(s), and, if applicable, identify which types of transactions are reported. The Commission also eliminates the time zone from the contract section and the Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) data requirement. These refinements to the existing EQR filing requirements reflect the evolving nature of interstate wholesale electric markets, will increase market transparency for the Commission and the public, and will allow market participants to file the information in the most efficient manner possible.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is making available on its Web site ( http://www.ferc.gov ) a draft of the XML schema that is being developed for use in filing Electric Quarterly Reports as proposed in the Commission's June 21, 2012 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 77 FR 39447 (July 3, 2012). Please refer to the Supplementary Information Section below for details.

The Commission seeks comment on this proposed policy statement, which clarifies and refines current policies governing the allocation of capacity for new merchant transmission projects and new nonincumbent, cost-based, participant-funded transmission projects. The Commission proposes to allow developers of such projects to select a subset of customers, based on not unduly discriminatory or preferential criteria, and negotiate directly with those customers to reach agreement on the key terms and conditions for procuring capacity, when the developers (1) broadly solicit interest in the project from potential customers, and (2) file a report with the Commission describing the solicitation, selection and negotiation process. The Commission proposes these policy reforms to ensure transparency in the capacity allocation process while providing developers the ability to bilaterally negotiate rates, terms, and conditions for the full amount of transmission capacity with potential customers.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is amending the pro forma Open Access Transmission Tariff to remove unduly discriminatory practices and to ensure just and reasonable rates for Commission-jurisdictional services. Specifically, this Final Rule removes barriers to the integration of variable energy resources by requiring each public utility transmission provider to: offer intra-hourly transmission scheduling; and, incorporate provisions into the pro forma Large Generator Interconnection Agreement requiring interconnection customers whose generating facilities are variable energy resources to provide meteorological and forced outage data to the public utility transmission provider for the purpose of power production forecasting.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) proposes to revise certain aspects of its current market-based rate regulations, ancillary services requirements under the pro forma open-access transmission tariff (OATT), and accounting and reporting requirements. Specifically, the Commission proposes to revise its Avista Corp. 1 policy governing the sale of ancillary services at market-based rates to public utility transmission providers and reflect such reforms in Parts 35 and 37 of the Commission's regulations. The Commission also proposes to require each public utility transmission provider to include provisions in its OATT explaining how it will determine Regulation and Frequency Response reserve requirements in a manner that takes into account the speed and accuracy of resources used. Finally, the Commission proposes to revise the accounting and reporting requirements under its Uniform System of Accounts for public utilities and licensees and its forms, statements, and reports, contained in FERC Form No. 1, Annual Report of Major Electric Utilities, Licensees and Others, FERC Form No. 1-F, Annual Report for Nonmajor Public Utilities and Licensees, and FERC Form No. 3-Q, Quarterly Financial Report of Electric Utilities, Licensees, and Natural Gas Companies, to better account for and report transactions associated with the use of energy storage devices in public utility operations. 1 See Avista Corp., 87 FERC ¶ 61,223 ( Avista ), order on reh'g, 89 FERC ¶ 61,136 (1999).

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) proposes to amend a Rule which governs the filing of Electric Quarterly Reports (EQRs), to change the process for filing EQRs. Currently, EQRs are filed by downloading EQR software from the Commission's Web site, installing it on the filer's Microsoft Windows-based computer, entering the EQR data into the software, and then submitting the EQR data to the Commission. The EQR software is designed in Microsoft Visual FoxPro. Technological changes and limitations will render the current filing process outmoded, ineffective, and unsustainable. Microsoft has discontinued Visual FoxPro and will not support the software after 2015. Visual FoxPro also is constrained by data size limitations that will soon restrict the Commission's ability to add data fields in the EQR. Therefore, the Commission proposes a new filing system that will provide EQR filers with two new options for filing EQRs. One option would allow an EQR filer to use a web interface on the Commission's Web site to file its EQR. This web interface would look and operate like the current EQR software that uses Visual FoxPro. However, an EQR filer would not need to download and install software from the Commission's Web site to file because the data would be filed directly with the Commission through the web interface. The other option would allow an EQR filer to file its EQR in an Extensible Mark-Up Language (XML) format via the Commission's Web site. By proposing a process with two options for filing EQRs, the Commission seeks to provide the flexibility needed to accommodate EQR filers' technical preferences. Under both options, the Commission proposes to require EQR filers to use the company identification number (Company Identifier) assigned through the Commission's Company Registration System, which was developed for the Commission's eTariff system. The Company Identifier would replace the personal identification numbers that are currently used and that are unique to the existing EQR filing process. The Commission also proposes that implementation of any changes to the process for filing EQRs will apply to EQR filings beginning with the third quarter 2013 EQR, providing data for July through September 2013. The Commission will convene a staff-led public conference on Wednesday, July 11, 2012 to demonstrate the two new options for filing EQRs to industry participants and assist participants in preparing their comments to this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission affirms its basic determinations in Order No. 1000, amending the transmission planning and cost allocation requirements established in Order No. 890 to ensure that Commission-jurisdictional services are provided at just and reasonable rates and on a basis that is just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential. This order affirms the Order No. 1000 transmission planning reforms that: Require that each public utility transmission provider participate in a regional transmission planning process that produces a regional transmission plan; provide that local and regional transmission planning processes must provide an opportunity to identify and evaluate transmission needs driven by public policy requirements established by state or federal laws or regulations; improve coordination between neighboring transmission planning regions for new interregional transmission facilities; and remove from Commission-approved tariffs and agreements a federal right of first refusal. This order also affirms the Order No. 1000 requirements that each public utility transmission provider must participate in a regional transmission planning process that has: A regional cost allocation method for the cost of new transmission facilities selected in a regional transmission plan for purposes of cost allocation and an interregional cost allocation method for the cost of new transmission facilities that are located in two neighboring transmission planning regions and are jointly evaluated by the two regions in the interregional transmission coordination process required by this Final Rule. Additionally, this order affirms the Order No. 1000 requirement that each cost allocation method must satisfy six cost allocation principles.

In this final rule, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) is amending its regulations to require each regional transmission organization (RTO) and independent system operator (ISO) to electronically deliver to the Commission, on an ongoing basis, data related to the markets that it administers. Specifically, the Commission is amending its regulations to establish ongoing electronic delivery of data relating to physical and virtual offers and bids, market awards, resource outputs, marginal cost estimates, shift factors, financial transmission rights, internal bilateral contracts, uplift, and interchange pricing. Such data will facilitate the Commission's development and evaluation of its policies and regulations and will enhance Commission efforts to detect anti-competitive or manipulative behavior, or ineffective market rules, thereby helping to ensure just and reasonable rates.