FERC grants extension in New England Ratepayers Association’s net metering proceeding
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday extended the due date for comments in the New England Ratepayers Association’s (NERA) legal challenge of full net metering transactions.
Comments are now due by June 15 in NERA’s petition requesting FERC to “declare that there is exclusive federal jurisdiction over wholesale energy sales from generation sources located on the customer side of the retail meter” and to order that the rates fall under federal purview, contrary to the current standard that places these programs under state authority.
The 30-day extension fell short from several motions that were filed seeking a 90-day extension from the original due date of May 14 to Aug. 12, including from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), which wanted additional time to respond to NERA’s filing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. NARUC also stated that the 90-day extension would permit the group to develop its position and formalize comments following discussions at its Summer Policy Summit being held in July.
While numerous entities — including the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, the American Public Power Association, the New England Small Hydro Coalition, and Advanced Energy Economy, the National Association of State Energy Officials, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, among others — supported NARUC’s April 28 motion, FERC sided with NERA’s opinion.
“In its answer, NERA states that, while it does not oppose a reasonable extension of time, 90 days is excessive, and an extension of between 30 and 60 days would be reasonable in these circumstances,” according to FERC’s May 4 Notice of Extension of Time. “Upon consideration, notice is hereby given that the comment date is extended by 30 days, to and including June 15, 2020.”
NARUC is not pleased about FERC’s decision.
“All regulators — state and federal — are called to serve the public interest. By limiting our response time — during a historic global pandemic — FERC has clearly decided to prioritize expediency over serving the public interest,” said Brandon Presley, NARUC president and a commissioner with the Mississippi Public Service Commission. “Although we were obviously hoping for a more reasonable time to develop our formal reply, we will work diligently in the weeks to come to fight this unwarranted challenge to state authority.”
The gist of the original NERA petition is that “the inequities and inefficiencies” of existing full net metering rates across the country have been increasingly recognized as both unjustifiable and unsustainable in a world where rooftop solar power has become a growing part of the nation’s energy sector, NERA President Marc Brown told Daily Energy Insider last month.
“We are not asking FERC to insert its jurisdiction on energy consumed on the customer side of the meter, only that which is exported to the grid and is then resold by a utility, which constitutes a wholesale sale under the Federal Power Act and should be regulated as such,” Brown said.
In New England, Brown said that full net metering policies have led to hundreds of millions of dollars in regressive cost-shifts from low- and middle-income families to higher-income families who take advantage of FNM policies, which grossly overpays them for the energy they export.
“Ending these policies will save ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars in New England and billions of dollars nationwide,” said Brown.
One day after NERA filed its petition, FERC issued an April 15 notice setting a May 14 deadline for comments, which now has been extended to June 15.
NARUC’s Presley called the timing of NERA’s petition “questionable” and said it “extorts the current limited opportunities of NARUC members.”
“While state regulators work around the clock to keep vital services flowing to Americans during a worldwide pandemic, they should not have to divert precious time, attention and resources to fighting NERA’s request in a tightly compressed schedule,” he said on Tuesday. “But, given this ruling yesterday, we will fight this petition with all of our resources because this is not the way to properly develop public policy.”
