Description: Challenge to FERC's rejection of part of the demand curve analysis filed by the New York Independent System Operator, which based its analysis on decarbonization timelines in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
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Independent Power Producers of New York, Inc. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 08/09/2022 Opinion Download Petition for review granted. D.C. Circuit Found Flaws in FERC Evaluation of New York Climate Law’s Impact on Rate Filing Assumptions. In an unpublished judgment, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a petition for review challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) denial of a rate filing submitted by the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) in which assumptions underlying the rate filing included that the average commercial lifespan of a hypothetical new gas-fired “peaking plant” would be 17 years, rather than the 20 years assumed in previous filings. NYISO based this assumption on New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) requirement for a zero-emissions electricity sector by 2040. The D.C. Circuit found that FERC’s rationale for its position that NYISO should continue to use a 20-year amortization period because the CLCPA did not require all fossil fuel-fired plants to cease operations by 2040 was insufficiently reasoned. The court said FERC’s precedents required NYISO to take into account currently effective laws and that FERC’s rejection of the NYISO filing based on a possibility that the CLCPA’s requirements might be altered was “squarely inconsistent” with these precedents. The court also was not persuaded by FERC’s arguments that compliance criteria for the CLCPA’s zero-emissions requirement were not finalized and that comments by NYISO’s Market Monitoring Unit suggested that the CLCPA did not require retirement of gas-fired power generators to satisfy the zero-emission requirement. 02/04/2022 Brief Download Brief filed by intervenor Multiple Intervenors in support of respondent. 01/28/2022 Brief Download Brief filed by FERC. FERC defended its rejection of the 17-year amortization period, arguing that the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act did not require fossil-fueled generation to retire in 2040. 11/15/2021 Brief Download Brief filed by petitioner. Independent Power Producers of New York, Inc. (IPPNY) argued that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had improperly rejected the 17-year amortization period for a hypothetical new gas power plant that the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) proposed as part of NYISO's quadrennial filing of demand curves for wholesale capacity markets in New York. NYISO based the 17-year period on the requirement in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act that all electricity in New York be generated by zero-emission sources by 2040. IPPNY argued that FERC had based its rejection of the demand curve calculations on speculation that New York might change its law and allow fossil fuel-fired generators to continue operations after 2040. IPPNY argued that FERC's approach was inconsistent with the Federal Power Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and FERC precedent. 08/09/2021 Petition for Review Download Petition for review filed.