A new federal-state task force to help speed the buildout of the U.S. electric grid wrestled Nov. 10 with how far the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should go in encouraging greater state participation within the regional grid operators as part of the agency's sweeping transmission rulemaking.
FERC Chairman Richard Glick is hoping the joint task force (AD21-15), which features 10 members of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, or NARUC, will produce solutions that can eventually be incorporated into a final rule by the end of 2022.
Launched in July, the commission's advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (RM21-17) asked commenters to weigh in on a host of issues, including how the benefits of new transmission projects, such as grid resilience, can be properly assigned to beneficiaries.
The task force, comprising regulators from a diverse set of states, met formally for the first time Nov. 10 at NARUC's annual memberwide meeting in Louisville, Ky.
"States have an incredibly important role to play here," Glick said during the meeting, noting that states have primary authority over generation and transmission siting. "We can do everything that needs to be done ... but if the states don't support [a project], it's just not going to move forward. We see it time and time again."
During the discussion, Glick pressed task force members on whether the commission should require a more formal role for states that participate in FERC-jurisdictional regional transmission organizations, or RTOs, which oversee transmission planning.
FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, a former state regulator in Virginia, refined the question even further.
"Do you all, as state regulators, think that FERC should use the regulatory authority we have over RTOs to effectively regulate toward an ideal model?" Christie said. "That's a very threshold question."
Commissioner Riley Allen of the Vermont Public Utility Commission, described the question as "delicate," but nevertheless predicted that the ISO New England will likely file tariff changes with FERC that provide for greater state involvement in transmission planning and cost allocation. The New England region is poised to add thousands of megawatts of offshore wind generation in the coming years required by aggressive state-level decarbonization laws.
"Whether FERC wants to get ahead of that or not, I don't think I would wish that yet," Allen said.
Ted Thomas, chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission, noted the Southwest Power Pool Inc., a 14-state regional grid operator, is unique in that it has a regional state committee responsible for allocating costs for new transmission projects.
"From my perspective, it's good when a project has been through the RTO process because that helps it get through a commission proceeding," Thomas said.
But Andrew French, chairman of the Kansas Corporation Commission, also offered a word of caution. SPP is also looking to expand its footprint in the U.S. West, which could result in a larger and more diverse regional state committee.
"I welcome the diversity of opinion, but I do wonder what the intersection of that is ... a regional state committee that wields that much power and the potential for gridlock," French said.
In an interview on the sidelines of the meeting, Glick highlighted the robust dialogue around potential RTO participation models.
"Clearly, there was a lot of discussion about the role FERC should play in encouraging more state participation within RTOs," Glick told S&P Global Market Intelligence. "That's something we'll have to consider moving forward."
FERC is also scheduled to hold a Nov. 15 technical conference to consider comments received in response to its broader transmission rulemaking.
