US manufacturers ask FERC to stop DOE notice of proposed rulemaking

A group of large industrial users of electricity filed comments with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) this week, asking the commission to terminate a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) from the Department of Energy (DOE) that seeks to compensate certain generation resources for reliability and resiliency attributes.

The NOPR directs FERC to develop and implement rules to provide these compensations, which would be paid primarily to nuclear and coal plants.

The group included the Electricity Consumers Resource Council (ELCON), American Chemistry Council (ACC), American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), and a number of state industrial energy groups.

“The U.S. manufacturing community strongly oppose the DOE NOPR and urges the FERC to terminate this proceeding,” the group said in its comments. “If implemented, the Proposal would override the market’s ability to select the most efficient units, increase the electricity costs by many millions of dollars for untold numbers of businesses and consumers, and result in substantial loss of U.S. manufacturing capacity of jobs.”

The comments said the NOPR’s premise, that the shutdown of coal and nuclear plants threaten grid reliability and resiliency, “unfounded.” The manufacturers attributed it to a properly functioning competitive market.

“Although the competitive markets are not perfect, the current historically low electricity prices that have resulted from their operation have substantially benefited that competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing sector that depends on affordable and reliable energy supplies,” the comments said. “Those markets cannot be sustained if coal, nuclear, wind, and solar resources are all compensated with out-of-market payments.”