ISO NE (whoever they are) extended the life of the obsolete MOPR rule (whatever that stands for.) The decision makes it harder for renewable energy systems to get on the grid for several more years- thru 2025 and 2026. Why and how was this decision made? Follow our guest down the rabbit hole of the FERC Docket E22-391. Instead of the Mad Hatter, we encounter the Internal Market Monitor and the External Market Monitor who collectively monitor…stuff.

In the 21, 2022 “Acceptance Order” available on the FERC docket, a comment from FERC Chair Glick seems pertinent “But an overly broad MOPR does more harm than good. Where a capacity offer is low for legitimate rather than anti-competitive reasons… artificially raising that offer hurts competition, potentially pushing the resource out of the market and forcing capacity prices above the competitive level.^[i] Moreover, by producing high capacity prices notwithstanding an abundance of low-cost supply, an overly broad MOPR can lead to uneconomic price signals that falsely suggest that new capacity is needed or that existing capacity should be retained.^[ii] That result distorts the market-clearing price, and forces customers to pay more than necessary to meet their capacity needs. In addition, an over-broad MOPR may impose complex administrative burdens on resources even when anti-competitive behavior is not a threat. “

Action you can take:

• Ask FERC to direct ISO-New England to eliminate the discriminatory Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) as quickly as possible.  You can email FERC at [email protected] now or submit an eComment after ISO-New England files its plan at FERC in early March.  Until ISO-New England files its plan at FERC, there will not be a docket number, but here is a description of how to file comments in another past proceeding: here is how to description of how to file comments, taken from a different recent past proceeding. It will be the same process here with a new docket number. 

The reading list:

• The Climate Minute Podcast talks to a legal expert on the MOPR rule
• FERC docket link. Enter ER22-391 subdocket 000
• Globe report on ISO-NE decision regarding MOPR
• Globe on reaction to the ISO-NE/MOPR ruling
• ISO NE's response
• the ISO-NE site, scroll down a little to see the organizational relationships of FERC, Internal and External monitors to ISO etc
• WaPo on FERC's new guidance to include climate in policy
• Slides from the MMWEC Public meeting in June 2021. See slide 31 for the rejection of storage.
• Some interesting 'services' that battery storage can make money on.

Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for a building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist the United States transform it’s energy sector, over the next decade, under a just and equitable plan, that uses regulations, investments and a price on carbon to safeguard our collective future.

Thanks for listening.

…Ted McIntyre