DRAFT
Meeting Minutes of the NEPOOL Transmission Committee
Doubletree Hotel Westborough, Massachusetts
September 27, 2016
______
Attendee / Member/Alternate /
Market Participant
D. Gates / Chair /ISO New England Inc.
J. Rotger / Vice Chair /Member /
Emera Energy
J.Dwyer / Secretary /ISO New England Inc.
C. Belew / Alternate / Mass AG*Robert Belliveau / Member / Emera Maine
R. Borghesani / Member / TEC & TEC-RI
C. Bowie / Alternate / Eversource
*S. Burnham / Alternate / Royal Bank of Canada
*N. Chafetz / Member/
Alternate / Energy America, Galt Power, Repsol
J. Clemente / Member / United Illuminating
*J. Davis / Member / Dominion
*S. Dimou / Temporary
Alternate / Emera Maine
P. Dumais / Alternate / Avangrid
F. Ettori / Member / VELCO
M. Gardner / Member / NextEra
S. Garwood / Temporary Alternate / New Hampshire Transmission (related to NextEra)
A. Jarvis / Temporary
Alternate / Calpine
J. Keene / Member / First Wind Energy Marketing
W. Kilgoar / Member / LIPA
P. Krawczyk / Member / Eversource
A. Krich / Member / Gen Group Member
T. Martin / Alternate / NGrid
B. McKinnon / Member/
Alternate / CMEEC, NH Electric Coop, South Hadley
P. Peterson / Member/
Alternate / Ct. OCC, NH OCA, VEIC, UCS
*F. Plett / Member / Mass AG
R. Stein / Member/
Alternate / PSEG, HQ-US, Gen Group Member
*B. Swalwell / Alternate / AR LR Small Group
B. Thompson / Member / MMWEC
Guest / Affiliation
D. Capra / NESCOE
*S. Carey / ISO
V. Divatia / Eversource
*M. Drzewianowski / ISO
A. DiGrande / ISO
*J. Fenn / Emera Maine
*L. Fink / MePUC
*C. Fraser / MDPU
S. Gibelli / NextEra
M. Gonzalez / ISO New England
*M. Grover / Eversource
K. Haag / ISO New England
B.Kay / ISO New England
*R. Klieman / EDF Renewable Energy
*P. Lavelle / Eversource
J. Marshall / NESCOE
*M. Menino / MDPU
G. McCloskey / NH PUC
*B. Oberlin / ISO
*T. Paradise / ISO
*R. Pezella / Apex
B. Rollow / Pattern Energy
*S. Rourke / ISO
E. Runge / Day-Pitney NEPOOL Counsel
S. Segner / LS Power
*R. Seide / Apex
*G. Stern / CMEEC
J. Thien / ISO New England
*P. Williamson / Apex
M. Winkler / ISO
*Participated by telephone
After determining that a quorum was present, the Transmission Committee (TC or Committee) meeting was called to order.
Agenda Item No. 1: Chairman Remarks
The Committee Vice Chair asked to be recognized and proposed the following resolution which was thereafter moved, seconded and unanimously approved by the Committee:
WHEREAS, as a young and eager engineer, Mr. Gates began his career desiring not only to provide for his family and pay for green fees, but to also to find work that would bring together diverse interests for the betterment of society through ensuring the reliability of the bulk power system; and
WHEREAS, in pursuit of this goal, Mr. Gates spent his early career working for the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Corporation and later the NEPEX control center, where he spent several joyful years working for NEPOOL in partial fulfillment of his goal; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Gates remained a happy engineer and operator through NEPEX’s transformation by NEPOOL into ISO New England Inc. in 1997, at first a small NEPOOL contractor serving as the region’s system operator but now a behemoth of regional system planning, operations, and markets; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Gates steered a steady course at the ISO through all the swirling currents of RTO formation and the growing pains of an independent system operator, while ever searching for that one special job that would fulfill his purpose in life and still allow him to play golf on sunny afternoons; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Gates did indeed find that job (or Steve Rourke found it for him, we do not know which) as Chair of the NEPOOL Transmission Committee, a role in which Mr. Gates has served admirably for the past 10 years, uniting disparate interests and personalities, striving for solutions where others see problems, managing meetings in a fair and open way, working collaboratively with NEPOOL, and making sure that meetings accomplish the work that needs to get done while cookies are delivered on time; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Gates is today serving in his last meeting as Chair of the NEPOOL Transmission Committee and will be retiring from the ISO at the end of 2016;
NOW THEREFORE, be it resolved that the NEPOOL Transmission Committee deeply appreciates Mr. Gates’ faithful, steady, fair and open chairmanship of the committee and wishes him all the best in the next phase of his life as he pursues his goals and his purpose, while leaving time for at least a few rounds of golf.
1(A) Approval of Minutes – July 26, 2016 Meeting
It was moved and seconded to approve the minutes of the July 26, 2016 Transmission Committee meeting.
Based on a show of hands, the motion to approve the minutes passed unanimously.
1(B) Vice Chair of the Transmission Committee:
NEPOOL Counsel noted that the current Vice Chair’s two-year term is coming to a close and that nominations will be due soon. A nominating committee can be formed if members would like one but the usual practice has been to collect the names of those interested and, if there is more than one person interested, hold an election. Those interested in serving as Vice Chair should contact NEPOOL Counsel.
Agenda Item No. 2: Section 206 Proceeding on Regional Network Service and Local Network Service Formula Rates (Docket No. EL16-19-000)
NEPOOL Counsel briefly summarized the background of this proceeding and the settlement proceedings following FERC’s December 2015 order. The next steps in this process are two meetings among the parties in Boston on October 21st and November 18th (the second one with the Settlement Judge participating) on proposed revisions to Attachment F of the Tariff. NEPOOL Counsel will be sending a memo on the proposed revisions to those who are parties to the case. NEPOOL Counsel then invited any additional comments that the other parties might wish to make. Their spokesmen agreed that the summary provided was both fair and accurate.
Agenda Item #3: NEPOOL Comments in the Order 1000 Technical Conference Proceeding (Docket No. AD16-18-000)
NEPOOL Counsel made a brief statement to provide the context for, background, and an overview of the proposed comments and the process of posting them for today’s meeting. He noted that the initial draft that was e-mailed to the Committee on September 16th got a lot of reaction from participants and the ISO which led to a second draft being prepared and posted on September 21st.
The Committee Vice Chair added that the objective, following up on the summer meeting in August, was to put something in writing and get it out as a strawman to elicit input. The discussion of comments should include whether or not to file anything at all. There has clearly been a lot of response and that is what the Vice Chair and NEPOOL Counsel were looking for.
Before moving to a review of the proposed comments themselves, NEPOOL Counsel responded to general questions about the Technical Conference as follows:
Although comments are due on October 3rd, these are only comments so it is not likely to be a problem if they are filed later.
Voting could be deferred to a later meeting but it would be helpful to know whether the Committee supports making a filing at all and, if so, to develop a sense of what should be in any comments filed.
A Committee guest noted the Commission’s interest in the Technical Conference and suggested there should be some comments or feedback from NEPOOL.
NEPOOL Counsel reviewed the draft comments with the Committee and noted that the additional documents posted on September 26th were provided as comments by others on what he was presenting.
During and after the presentation, a number of comments were made by the Committee focusing primarily on the sections dealing with how the three-month reliability exemption from competition has been applied in New England to date, the comment suggesting that FERC ensure that exemption is applied carefully and on a narrow basis, and the comment that some elements of the implementation that are material should be subject to FERC review and approval.
Among the concerns raised were:
- Whether this duplicates efforts that the stakeholder process or FERC itself has already undertaken;
- Whether the language used can be interpreted as alleging non-compliance which should more properly be in a Section 206 complaint to the FERC;
- Whether the comments reflect a broad NEPOOL perspective or exclusively those of a smaller subset of participants; and
- General concern about the process followed in developing the draft comments and suggestions from some Participants that the whole purpose of today’s discussion and vote are to develop draft comments.
The Committee arrived at a consensus that there should be no vote at this meeting but that general discussion would continue.
It was suggested that the Committee hear from the Participants who posted their own revisions or at least hear what issues led them to propose alternative language.
Two Committee members that were proponents of the alternative language posted for the meeting responded as follows:
A concern was raised because they did not realize NEPOOL was developing comments until they saw the September 16th draft which made it difficult for them, as a group, to achieve a consensus view of the proposal.
The proposed language, perhaps due to misinterpretation in some cases, seemed to go beyond consensus NEPOOL positions or discussions.
It seemed odd that comments would include what seemed to be requests for FERC to take action.
Rather than proceed with red-lines the Committee members suggested taking a step back to get together on what points ought to be addressed in whatever comments NEPOOL decides to make.
In response to specific questions on the proposed revisions as posted, they noted:
The section on state solicitations was just to point out that some competitive solicitation for transmission is occurring in New England even if not in the Order 1000 context.
A footnote concerning a proposal currently in the stakeholder process was deleted because they viewed it as preliminary and not yet fully vetted. A Committee member stated her disagreement with that deletion.
After additional general discussion, it was agreed that NEPOOL comments should be developed and a process was laid out.[1]
NEPOOL Counsel will accept comments from all NEPOOL Participants interested in providing them. A new draft will be written and reviewed by the NEPOOL officers and then be posted for a vote at the October 26th TC and the November 4th PC. Comments should be provided to NEPOOL Counsel by October 7th.
Agenda Item #4: Schedule 2 Base Capacity Cost Review:
Ms. Thian gave a brief summary of the prior discussions on this subject and noted that the ISO had received no additional information since the June and July presentations to the Committee. The ISO continues to recommend no change to the current VAR CC Rate.
In response to questions from the Committee:
The ISO explained the derivation of some of the rate components discussed in the July presentation.
The ISO said that it considered re-visiting the rate calculation in 2020 or, as was done in the past per the Commission’s directive, in five years. The effective date of any change may be impacted by the scope of effort required. Updating data in the current methodology or adopting new methodologies might have very different timelines.
The Vice Chair noted that, as discussed at the July TC meeting, NEPOOL Counsel had prepared a motion for the Committee to vote on whether or not it agreed with leaving the current VAR CC Rate unchanged.
It was moved and seconded that:
The Transmission Committee recommends Participants Committee support for ISO-NE’s proposal to maintain unchanged, on and after January 1, 2017, the current “Base CC Rate” of $2.19/kVAR-yr as part of the compensation for VAR Service under Schedule 2 of the ISO New England Inc. Open Access Transmission Tariff.
During the discussion of the motion some Committee members questioned the need for this rate and others suggested the current rate is not compensatory and should not be extended for up to four years without a commitment to review and revise it going forward. The potential need to change VAR compensation going forward to reflect changes in the resource mix, the need for visible and Dispatchable Resources that can consume or produce VARs, and other factors were also raised.
After the discussion, the motion was voted and passed on a show of hands with abstentions noted in the End Users, Alternative Resources, Suppliers, and Generation Sectors.
Agenda Item #5: Proposed Tariff Revisions for NextEra Order 1000 Implementation Proposal
Stephen Gibelli and Michelle Gardner presented NextEra’s proposal and accompanying Tariff revisions.
During and after the presentation, NextEra responded to several questions from the Committee and the ISO concerning the recommendation of annual planning cycles and the application of a tightened standard for the ISO to demonstrate which short-term needs ought to be exempted from competition.
After the presentation, the following comments were offered by the Committee:
- Care needs to be taken in developing standards based on the capability to operate around short term needs and the current ISO study methodology may need to be adjusted to accommodate an annual or other regularly scheduled planning cycle.
- Moving to an annual planning schedule is more complex than just refining the three-year exemption and might need to be on a different schedule.
- Cost containment measures may need to be discussed but not as part of this proposal.
The ISO added its concerns that in some areas they are operating around limits right now with Resources that will not be available fairly soon due to retirements.