The annual forward capacity auction run for the six-state power grid (I wrote about it yesterday) might have produced record-low prices, but it also frustrated some renewable energy creators because of a ultra-wonky regulatory issue: whether state or federal rules should be used for connecting to the grid.
Utility Dive has the story (here): “The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Feb. 3 denied a waiver to participate in the auction requested by asset management company Genbright, after 14 projects were deemed to have missed a key qualification deadline. … Eversource determined developers had used the state interconnection process when in fact FERC had jurisdiction.”
These projects totaled just 65 megawatts, so we’re not talking massive disruption, but it reflects the complexity that the electric system has built up over a century of operation, and how that complexity can lock in existing systems, either inadvertently or on purpose.
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