ESG & Industry Updates

In March, RENEW Northeast and the American Clean Power Association (ACPA) filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) asking the agency to find that ISO New England market rules “provide undue preference to natural gas only resources” and to direct the grid operator to fix its ruled to end that preference.

The allegation is based on how the reliability is weighted for natural gas versus “intermittent” resources like solar and wind. For example, solar is scored lower for reliability based on winter supply issues, wind turbines are lowered through summer months based on projected output, but natural gas is presumed to have 100% reliability despite growing concerns that capacity problems in the Northeast Region would potentially make gas inaccessible under full winter loads in extreme situations. If you recall, natural gas capacity in the region has been a concern for quite some time. 

We wrote an article for Oil & Energy in April laying out the details and basis of the complaint, as well as how the capacity auction works and served to generate this complaint. You can read that article in its entirety here: Renewable Advocates Target ISO New England

Back in April the NERA (New England Ratepayers Association) filed a petition that would have changed the way so called "net metering" works for solar energy generation, by essentially considering the excess "buyback" solar energy sold back to utilities as constituting a wholesale transaction, governed by the established rates. (We discussed that here: "Net Metering Under Threat" ).

In June, the FERC unanimously voted to dismiss the petition. That means for the time being, the net metering system as we know it will remain, but the question becomes how long that will be the case, as it's unlikely the proposal offered by NERA will be the last of its kind. For more on the dismissal and potential future of net metering, this article in Forbes has a quick overview:  "Unanimous FERC Decision Saves Net Metering, But Its Future Remains Uncertain"