Utility Dive reported FERC rejected NYISO's proposal for capacity market rules to accommodate renewable energy, quoting AEE's Jeff Dennis. Read excerpts and the entire Utility Dive piece here.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday rejected the New York Independent System Operator's (NYISO) proposal to alter its capacity market in order to accommodate the renewable energy required for the state to reach 70% renewable energy by 2030...

FERC's decision, if it stands, "will drive states that are committed to clean energy out of regional markets and back within their own borders," according to Jeff Dennis, managing director and general counsel for Advanced Energy Economy. "This decision from FERC goes a troubling step beyond its earlier MOPR rulings," said Dennis. "Rather than pointing to supposed price suppression caused by state policies, it now flatly says that market operators can't even acknowledge the reality of lawful state policies..."

Dennis, however, in a Wednesday blog post, warned that "leaving an independently operated capacity market is no quick fix for the curve balls FERC has thrown at states." Leaving centralized capacity markets, he wrote, "is a fraught choice that should be pursued only if all other potential pathways have been thoroughly exhausted." There are concerns among some energy companies that states leaving regional capacity markets will reduce the benefits of competition, Dennis wrote, along with creating barriers to market participation and increasing the costs of meeting clean energy goals.

FERC's Republican majority is "attempting to undermine clean energy and state choices," he said. But even still, "states would be better off working with RTOs/ISOs and other stakeholders to identify reforms to energy, ancillary services, and capacity markets to align them with state clean energy policies, rather than undermine them."

Read the entire Utility Dive piece here.