[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 23 (Wednesday, February 4, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6066-6067]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-02112]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

[Docket No. RD14-12-000]


Proposed Agency Information Collection

AGENCY: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy.

ACTION: Comment request.

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SUMMARY: In compliance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. 3507(a)(1)(D), the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission (Commission or FERC) is submitting the FERC-725D information 
collection in Docket No. RD14-12-000 to the Office of Management and 
Budget (OMB) for review of the information collection requirements. Any 
interested person may file comments directly with OMB and should 
address a copy of those comments to the Commission as explained below. 
The Commission issued a Notice in the Federal Register (79 FR 68426, 
11/17/2014) requesting public comments. FERC received no comments in 
response to that notice and is making the notation in its submission to 
OMB.

DATES: Comments on the collection of information are due by March 6, 
2015.

ADDRESSES: Comments filed with OMB should be sent via email to the 
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs: [email protected], 
Attention: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Desk Officer and should 
be identified by FERC-725D (OMB Control Number 1902-0247), The OMB Desk 
Officer may also be reached via telephone at 202-395-0710.
    A copy of the comments should also be sent to the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission, identified by the Docket No. RD14-12-000, by 
either of the following methods:
     eFiling at Commission's Web site: http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/efiling.asp.
     Mail/Hand Delivery/Courier: Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission, Secretary of the Commission, 888 First Street NE., 
Washington, DC 20426.
    Instructions: All submissions must be formatted and filed in 
accordance with submission guidelines at: http://www.ferc.gov/help/submission-guide.asp. For user assistance, contact FERC Online Support 
by email at [email protected], or by phone at: (866) 208-3676 
(toll-free), or (202) 502-8659 for TTY.
    Docket: Users interested in receiving automatic notification of 
activity in this docket or in viewing/downloading comments and 
issuances in this docket may do so at http://www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/docs-filing.asp.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ellen Brown may be reached by email at 
[email protected], telephone at (202) 502-8663, and fax at (202) 
273-0873.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The information collection changes in Docket 
No. RD14-12-000 relate to the Reliability Standards FAC-001-2 (Facility 
Interconnection Requirements) and FAC-002-2 (Facility Interconnection 
Studies), developed by the North American Electric Reliability 
Corporation (NERC), and submitted to the Commission for approval. The 
Commission received NERC's petition to approve the proposed Reliability 
Standards on August 22, 2014.
    NERC summarizes the FAC group of standards as follows:

    The Facility Design, Connections, and Maintenance (``FAC'') 
Reliability Standards address topics such as facility 
interconnection requirements, facility ratings, system operating 
limits, and transfer capabilities.\1\
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    \1\ NERC Petition at 3.

    In its petition, NERC also summarizes the proposed Reliability 
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Standards' applicability and requirements:

    Proposed Reliability Standard FAC-001-2 requires that 
Transmission Owners and applicable Generator Owners document and 
make Facility interconnection requirements available so that 
entities seeking to interconnect have the necessary information. 
Proposed Reliability Standard FAC-002-2 ensures that the reliability 
impact of interconnecting new or materially modified Facilities is 
studied. Collectively, proposed Reliability Standards FAC-001-2 and 
FAC-002-2 ensure that there is appropriate coordination and 
communication regarding the interconnection of Facilities, which 
improves the reliability of the Bulk-Power System.\2\
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    \2\ Id. at 3.
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    Finally, NERC also states that the proposed Reliability Standards 
improve reliability, clarify requirement language

[[Page 6067]]

and eliminate redundant or unnecessary requirements.\3\
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    \3\ Id. at 4.
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    Burden Statement: Commission staff analyzed the proposed and 
currently enforced Reliability Standards and has concluded that 
proposed Reliability Standards merely clarify or eliminate redundancies 
and thus, the information collection requirements have not changed. 
Accordingly, the net overall burden and respondent universe \4\ remain 
unchanged, when compared to the burden of the existing standards being 
replaced.\5\
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    \4\ The affected entities for FAC-001-2 are Transmission Owners 
(TO) and applicable Generator Owners (GO). The affected entities for 
FAC-002-2 are Transmission Planners (TP), Planning Coordinators 
(PC), Generator Owners (GO), Transmission Owners (TO), Distribution 
Providers (DP), and Load-Serving Entities (LSE). Note that Planning 
Coordinator (PC) is the new name for Planning Authority--a term 
still used in NERC's Compliance Registry.
    \5\ The burden for the preceding versions of the standards being 
replaced was included in: (a) FERC-725M (OMB Control No. 1902-0263) 
for FAC-001-1, and (b) FERC-725A (OMB Control No. 1902-0244) for 
FAC-002-1. The corresponding burden will be transferred from FERC-
725M and FERC-725A to FERC-725D.
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    The Commission intends to submit a request for approval to OMB 
under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) related to the proposed 
Reliability Standards. For PRA purposes, the information collection 
requirements in proposed Reliability Standards FAC-001-2 and FAC-002-2 
are identified as FERC-725D and OMB Control Number 1902-0247.
    The annual reporting burden for the implementation of Reliability 
Standards FAC-001-2 and FAC-002-2 is estimated as follows.
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    \6\ The number of respondents is based on the NERC Compliance 
Registry as of September 24, 2014. Although 2,163 entities are 
registered as TO, DP, LSE, or GO, we expect at the most 216 entities 
(ten percent) will seek to interconnect and go through the study 
phase that may require coordination in any given year.
    \7\ The estimates for cost per hour are derived as follows:
     $72.92/hour, the average of the salary plus 
benefits for a manager ($84.96/hour) and an electrical engineer 
($60.87/hour), from Bureau of Labor and Statistics at http://bls.gov/oes/current/naics3_221000.htm, as of 9/4/2014
     $29.01/hour, based on a Commission staff study of 
record retention burden cost.

                                                           FERC-725D, modifications in RD14-12
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                                                                          Annual  number
                                                 Number and type of        of  responses   Total number   Average burden   Total annual    Total annual
                                                   respondent \6\               per        of responses    per response   burden (hours)     cost \7\
                                                                            respondent                        (hours)
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                                            (1).........................             (2)     (1)*(2)=(3)             (4)     (3)*(4)=(5)             ($)
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                                                                        FAC-001-2
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Documentation & updates...................  GO 5........................               1               5              16              80       $5,833.60
                                            TO 332......................               1             332              16           5,312      387,351.04
Record Retention..........................  GO 5........................               1               5               1               5          145.05
                                            TO 332......................               1             332               1             332        9,631.32
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                                                                        FAC-002-2
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Study.....................................  PC, TP 183..................               1             183              32           5,856      427,019.52
Record Retention..........................  PC, TP 183..................               1             183               1             183        5,308.83
Coordination..............................  TO, DP, LSE, GO 216.........               1             216              16            3456      252,011.52
Record Retention..........................  TO, DP, LSE, GO 216.........               1             216               1             216        6,266.16
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    Total.................................  ............................  ..............  ..............  ..............  ..............    1,093,567.04
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    Dated: January 28, 2015.
Kimberly D. Bose,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 2015-02112 Filed 2-3-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6717-01-P