Chairman Richard Glick Statement
April 29, 2021
Docket No. ER16-1404-005, ER16-1404-006, ER16-1404-007
I agree that municipal electric companies should be eligible for the self-supply exemption and that NYISO’s proposed definition of Self Supply LSE may inappropriately exclude those same entities on the basis that they are instrumentalities of the State of New York.[1] Further, while I agree with New York Power Authority (NYPA) that the Commission should not exclude public power entities like NYPA from the self-supply exemption,[2] at this stage of the proceeding these arguments amount to untimely requests for rehearing, as the order correctly points out.[3]
I write separately to underscore my continuing disagreement with the conclusions the Commission reached throughout this proceeding.[4] The Commission’s underlying orders in this proceeding have perverted NYISO’s buyer-side market power mitigation into a series of unnecessary and unreasoned obstacles to New York’s efforts to shape the resource mix. These mitigation rules are per se unreasonable and serve only to prop up prices, protect incumbent generators, and impede state clean energy policies.[5] I continue to believe that buyer-side market power mitigation should be all about and only about buyers with market power. Applying buyer-side market power mitigation to entities that are not buyers or buyers that lack market power is nonsensical. Moreover, even when applied to buyers who may have market power, mitigation must reasonably address their potential to exercise that market power.[6]
I urge NYISO and its stakeholders to move expeditiously to replace these buyer-side market power mitigation rules with a model that moves beyond minimum offer price rules as a means of mediating the interaction between state policies and wholesale markets. In the event NYISO and its stakeholders cannot settle upon a replacement for its current buyer-side market power rules, then we will be left with little choice but to step in and establish such rules ourselves.[7]
For these reasons, I respectfully concur.
[1] N.Y. Indep. Sys. Operator, Inc., 175 FERC ¶ 61,081, at PP 34-35 (2021) (Order) (explaining that in the February 2020 Order the Commission did not intend to exclude from eligibility for the self-supply exemption those instrumentalities indirectly controlled by the State, like municipally owned electric systems).
[2] N.Y. Indep. Sys. Operator, Inc., 172 FERC ¶ 61,058 (2020) (Rehearing Order) (Glick, Comm’r, dissenting at PP 2, 21-25) (explaining that the decision to “exclude[] public power self-supply entities [like NYPA] from that exemption . . . was arbitrary and capricious”).
[3]Order, 175 FERC ¶ 61,081 at P 36.
[4] N.Y. Indep. Sys. Operator, Inc., 170 FERC ¶ 61,121 (2020) (February 2020 Order) (Glick, Comm’r, dissenting); Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,058 (Glick, Comm’r, dissenting).
[5] February 2020 Order, 170 FERC ¶ 61,121 (Glick, Comm’r, dissenting at P 1); see also N.Y. Indep. Sys. Operator, Inc., 174 FERC ¶ 61,242 (2021) (Glick, Comm’r, concurring at P 2).
[6] Rehearing Order, 172 FERC ¶ 61,058 (Glick, Comm’r, dissenting at P 1).
[7] 174 FERC ¶ 61,242 (Glick, Comm’r, concurring at P 3) (citing 16 U.S.C. § 824e; Technical Conference Regarding Resource Adequacy in the Evolving Electricity Sector, Docket No. AD21-10-000, Tr. at 9:10-20 (Mar. 23, 2021) (Comments of Chairman Richard Glick) (“I think we should to the extent we can, allow . . . the RTOs themselves, and the stakeholders to come up with their own proposals, to organically come up with an approach that’s different on the current MOPR rules around the country. . . . But to the extent they don’t come up with something, I think we have an obligation under the Federal Power Act to act where rates and terms of these markets are unjust and unreasonable.”)).