4/26/2010 http://www.eenews.net/ by subscription only
Now the agency is ready to provide more certainty and send the right signals to those who would build transmission and increase nontraditional or "demand-side" resources, including flywheel and battery storage. The agency aims to voluntarily reduce power consumption using demand response, Wellinghoff said. . .
Wellinghoff said he has ordered FERC staff to draft a proposed rule soon on transmission funding formulas known as cost allocation. . .
"We ought to look at benefits to the entities that the costs are spread to," he said. "We should not spread costs to someone that there is absolutely no benefits to."
FERC already proposed a rule about making demand-side resources equal in market value to traditional power supply, and Wellinghoff said he is hoping to examine the pricing
structure for other non-traditional supply soon.
While FERC has "wide authority" on cost allocation issues, he said it would be easier to defend that authority in court if provisions that explicitly provide it in a bill passed by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last June were enacted.
Along with cost allocation, the Senate energy bill provides FERC with expanded authority for transmission planning and siting.
But there are questions about whether that bill will pass this year. It's embroiled with a larger, election-year debate on a sweeping Senate climate bill.
Given that, Wellinghoff said his legislative priority is to urge Congress to enact a provision giving FERC "backstop" authority to site transmission and pass a bill to give FERC emergency authority in case of a cyber attack. . .
Opposition from states, utilities
There is significant pushback from states and utilities on the Senate bill's proposed FERC authority. They cite concerns about paying for long power lines bringing Midwestern renewable energy to the East Coast and pre-empting regional planning efforts. . .
As FERC, Congress and the states work out these problems, a transmission problem looms over who will build transmission lines -- traditional utilities, companies that originally proposed the lines, or third parties? -- and how such matters will be decided, Wellinghoff said. . .
