[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 209 (Tuesday, October 29, 2002)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 65913-65915]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-27439]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

18 CFR Part 35

[Docket No. RM01-12-000]


Remedying Undue Discrimination Through Open Access Transmission 
Service and Standard Electricity Market Design

October 22, 2002.
AGENCY: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, DOE.

ACTION: Notice of technical conferences.

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SUMMARY: On July 31, 2002, the Commission issued a Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking (NOPR) in the above-captioned docket, proposing to amend its 
regulations to remedy undue discrimination through open access 
transmission service and standard electricity market design. The 
Commission has scheduled a series of public conferences, to be held in 
the Commission Meeting Room, to address specific areas of concern about 
the proposed rule. Persons interested in speaking at the conferences 
should file requests to speak on or before October 25, 2002.

DATES: Requests to speak are due: October 25, 2002. Conferences will be 
held on: November 6, 2002, November 19, 2002, and December 3, 2002.

ADDRESSES: Send requests to speak to: Office of the Secretary, Federal 
Energy

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Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, NE., Washington, DC 20426.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sarah McKinley, Office of External 
Affairs, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, NE., 
Washington, DC 20426, (202) 502-8004.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    1. Take notice that technical conferences led by Commissioners and 
members of Commission staff will be held on November 6, 2002, November 
19, 2002, and December 3, 2002. Each conference will take place from 
approximately 9:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room on 
the second floor of the offices of the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission, 888 First Street, NE., Washington, DC. All interested 
persons may attend, and registration is not required; however, in-
person attendees are asked to notify the Commission of their intent to 
attend by sending an e-mail message to [email protected].
    2. These technical conferences are intended to be working sessions 
that focus on clarifying areas of concern with the proposed rule, 
resolving differences, and devising solutions to the difficult issues 
that have been identified during the Commission's outreach efforts 
following issuance of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) in this 
docket. To make the conferences successful, we encourage participants 
to come prepared to support alternative proposals and offer concrete 
solutions to the issues that have been raised.
    3. As specified in the Notice issued in this docket on October 2, 
2002, the November 6, 2002, conference will focus on pricing proposals 
for network upgrades and expansions. The Commission wants to ensure 
that infrastructure will be built in a timely manner and that costs 
will be recovered in a fair and efficient manner. In particular, the 
discussions will attempt to clarify and seek consensus on:
    a. Definitions of pricing policies including types of participant 
funding.
    (1) ``Beneficiaries pay''--the beneficiary, whether a single 
customer, a rate zone, the entire RTO, or a neighboring region as 
determined by the Independent Transmission Provider, pays for the 
upgrades.
    (2) ``Market-based participant funding''--projects voluntarily 
proposed by individual market participants are voluntarily paid for by 
those participants, in order to use the expanded capacity and receive 
the Congestion Revenue Rights created.
    (3) ``Rolled in pricing''--projects are paid by all users of the 
regional grid.
    (4) ``Local License plate pricing''--Projects in a given service 
territory are paid for by those who pay the access charge in that 
territory.
    b. Definitions of categories of investments that must be addressed:
    (1) Region-wide reliability;
    (2) Local reliability;
    (3) Congestion relief.
    c. Which of the types of investments in (b) should be treated under 
each of the pricing policies in (a)?
    d. What barriers might remain under the proposed planning process 
to getting needed transmission built, and how can they be addressed 
better?
    e. How much regional variation should be allowed in determining the 
appropriate pricing treatment for each category of investment?
    f. Under market-based participant funding, should a market 
participant who funds an upgrade and receives the associated congestion 
revenue rights also pay an access charge to receive transmission 
service?
    g. In a region that moves to rely substantially on market-based 
participant funding, how should customers transition from transmission 
credits for network upgrades associated with generator interconnections 
to congestion revenue rights?
    h. In regions that propose to rely substantially on market-based 
participant funding, how can current wholesale network customers ensure 
that their load growth continues to be planned-for on a non-
discriminatory basis?
    i. What accommodations should be made, if any, to account for the 
recovery of the costs of transmission expansion with state retail rate 
freezes.
    4. The November 19, 2002 conference will focus on aspects of the 
resource adequacy requirement proposed in the NOPR, specifically:
    a. How to accommodate differences in state requirements for reserve 
margins, resource adequacy, and retail access to achieve a standard or 
seamless resource adequacy within each region;
    b. Appropriate elements of design for resource adequacy 
requirements in areas that have retail access;
    c. Methods of ensuring adequate resource deliverability;
    d. Potential roles for central procurement;
    e. Appropriate penalties for LSEs that do not meet the 
requirements;
    f. Balance of energy and capacity prices to provide appropriate 
long run investment incentives;
    g. Potential roles of forward capacity markets;
    h. How to assign the appropriate value (both price and quantity) to 
demand-side resources' participation in satisfying resource adequacy 
requirements;
    i. How to ensure resource adequacy in energy-limited systems; and
    j. Possible seams issues.
    5. The December 3, 2002, conference will discuss specific issues 
related to the transition to congestion revenue rights (CRRs), such as:
    a. Whether the Commission's proposal to have a mandatory auction 
for CRRs should be replaced by a policy allowing regions to choose an 
allocation procedure.
    b. Determining how to allocate CRRs such that all customers receive 
CRRs commensurate with their existing rights to the transmission 
system, including load diversity and to what extent planned and 
documented future load growth is accounted for;
    c. Determining how to make sure that competing load-serving 
entities can acquire CRRs associated with new load or load formerly 
served by another load-serving entity;
    d. Developing long-term CRRs to match the term of power purchase 
contracts;
    e. Where CRRs are auctioned, how to ensure that any auction 
revenues are properly returned to load;
    f. Guarding against the use of CRRs to exercise market power; and
    g. Allowing regional variation on how rights are allocated to load.
    6. Persons interested in speaking at these conferences should file 
a request to speak on or before October 25, 2002, in Docket No. RM01-
12-000. If possible, interested speakers should also send a copy of 
their request to speak to [email protected]. The request should clearly 
specify the topic and date of the conference to which the request 
pertains; the name of the speaker; his or her title; the person or 
entity the speaker represents; the speaker's mailing address, telephone 
number, facsimile number and e-mail address; and a brief description of 
the issues the speaker wishes to address. As the number of potential 
speakers may exceed the time allotted for the conference, interested 
speakers are encouraged to coordinate their efforts with others who may 
have similar interests. Based on the requests to participate, panels of 
speakers will be specified in a subsequent notice.
    7. Transcripts of the conference will be immediately available from 
Ace Reporting Company (202-347-3700 or 1-800-336-6646), for a fee. They 
will be available for the public on the Commission's FERRIS system two 
weeks after the conference. Additionally, Capitol Connection offers the 
opportunity for remote listening and viewing of the conference. It is 
available for a fee, live over the Internet, via C-Band Satellite. 
Persons interested in

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receiving the broadcast, or who need information on making arrangements 
should contact David Reininger or Julia Morelli at the Capitol 
Connection (703-993-3100) as soon as possible or visit the Capitol 
Connection website at http://www.capitolconnection.gmu.edu and click on 
``FERC.''
    8. For more information about the conferences, please contact Sarah 
McKinley at (202) 502-8004 or [email protected].

    By direction of the Commission.
Linwood A. Watson, Jr.,
Deputy Secretary.
[FR Doc. 02-27439 Filed 10-28-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6717-01-P