Energy Industry Associations File Comments with FERC Opposing Rule Proposed by Energy Secretary Perry to Subsidize Coal, Nuclear Power Plants

Joint filing says DOE proposal would “prop up uneconomic generation that is unable to compete and not otherwise needed for reliability”

Association officials will hold press availability Tues., Oct. 24, at 10 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 23, 2017 — A diverse group of 12 energy industry associations representing oil, natural gas, wind, solar, efficiency, and other energy technologies today submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in response to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed rulemaking on grid resiliency pricing. In joint comments, this broad group of energy industry associations urged FERC not to adopt DOE’s proposed rule to provide out-of-market financial support to uneconomic coal and nuclear power plants in the wholesale electricity markets overseen by FERC. 

Specifically, the energy industry associations’ comments state that:

• DOE’s request for a rule that provides discriminatory compensation to certain coal and nuclear resources is based on a “justification for the proposed payments – resiliency – [which] is not well defined, nor is it demonstrated to be lacking” in the regions that would be affected by the rule;
• The DOE request “fails to provide substantial evidence” for its claim that “RTO/ISO markets do not adequately value fuel security,” and fails to justify its conclusion that “full cost of service payments are therefore needed to prevent ‘early retirement’ of resources with 90 days of on-site fuel supply”;
• Rather, “there is substantial evidence showing that electric systems that lack, or are transitioning to lesser reliance on, coal and nuclear resources are nonetheless operated in a manner that is both reliable and resilient,” and that “outages caused by disruptions of fuel supply to generators appear to be virtually nonexistent.”
• Therefore, the proposed DOE rule would “prop up uneconomic generation that is unable to compete … and that is not otherwise needed for reliability.”
• “Accordingly, the proposed rule has not been shown to be just and reasonable and cannot be adopted by the Commission.”

The follow energy industry associations submitted the comments jointly:

• Advanced Energy Economy
• American Biogas Council
• American Council on Renewable Energy
• American Petroleum Institute
• American Wind Energy Association
• Electric Power Supply Association
• Electricity Consumers Resource Council
• Energy Storage Association
• Independent Petroleum Association of America
• Interstate Natural Gas Association of America
• Natural Gas Supply Association
• Solar Energy Industries Association

Several other groups and individual energy companies signed the joint comments as well.

Representatives of energy industry associations joining in this filing will be available to speak about their opposition to DOE’s proposed rule and take questions in a press briefing:

WHEN:          Tues., Oct. 24, at 10am ET

WHERE:        K&L Gates LLP, Conference Room 1-B
                      1601 K Street, NW (entrance on 16th St.)
                      Washington, D.C. 20006

CALL-IN:      MEDIA RSVP

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INDUSTRY GROUPS:
Advanced Energy Economy at www.aee.net
American Biogas Council at www.americanbiogascouncil.org
American Council on Renewable Energy at www.acore.org
American Petroleum Institute at www.api.org
American Wind Energy Association at www.awea.org/DOEresiliencyrule
Electric Power Supply Association at https://epsa.org
Electricity Consumers Resource Council at https://elcon.org
Energy Storage Association at http://energystorage.org/
Independent Petroleum Association of America at www.ipaa.org
Interstate Natural Gas Association of America at www.ingaa.org
Natural Gas Supply Association at www.ngsa.org
Solar Energy Industries Association at www.seia.org 

MEDIA CONTACTS:
AEE, Monique Hanis, mhanis@aee.net, 202-391-0884
ACORE, Gil Jenkins, jenkins@acore.org 202-777-7584
API, Michael, Tadeo, tadeom@api.org, 202-682-8540
AWEA, Peter Kelley, pkelley@awea.org, 202-270-8831
EPSA, John Shelk, jshelk@epsa.org, (202) 628-8200
IPAA, Neal Kirby, nkirby@ipaa.org, (202) 857-4722
INGAA, Cathy Landry, clandry@ingaa.org 202-216-5913
NGSA, Daphne Magnuson, daphne.magnuson@ngsa.org, 202-326-9314
SEIA, Alexandra Hobson, ahobson@seia.org, 202-556-2886