Politico Pro reported on FERC's decision today not to rehear arguments on Order 841 that allows energy storage providers to participate in wholesale power markets, including AEE's Jeff Dennis' reaction. See the full Politico piece here (sub. req.) and excerpts below.
FERC today declined to rehear arguments on its landmark order allowing energy storage providers to participate in wholesale power markets. Commissioners voted 3-1 to leave Order 841 in place, dismissing a request from electric cooperatives and municipal utilities to let states opt-out of letting distribution-connected storage participate in wholesale markets.
Republican Commissioner Bernard McNamee dissented against the part of the order denying state opt-outs, arguing it exceeded FERC's jurisdiction...
The FERC majority disagreed, arguing that the Federal Power Act gives FERC jurisdiction over transactions in the wholesale market, even when resources are sited on utility distribution systems that are typically regulated by states.
After the meeting, the storage sector pushed FERC to apply a similar legal analysis to distributed resources as they did for larger storage devices.
"Energy storage is just one of those technologies that faces barriers to entry into wholesale markets," said Jeff Dennis, general counsel at Advanced Energy Economy, a cleantech trade group. "So we think FERC should build on the progress it made today in upholding Order 841 and we hope they will prioritize finalizing a similar rule to permit aggregations DER to participate in wholesale markets utilizing the legally sound approach it took in today's order."
Read the full Politico piece here (sub. req.).