A memo prepared at FERC in late June for Mr. Wellinghoff before he briefed senior officials made several urgent points. "Destroy nine interconnection substations and a transformer manufacturer and the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer," said the memo, which was reviewed by the Journal. That lengthy outage is possible for several reasons, including that only a handful of U.S. factories build transformers.

"Today’s publication by The Wall Street Journal of sensitive information about the grid undermines the careful work done by professionals who dedicate their careers to providing the American people with a reliable and secure grid. The Wall Street Journal has appropriately declined to identify by name particularly critical substations throughout the country. Nonetheless, the publication of other sensitive information is highly irresponsible. While there may be value in a general discussion of the steps we take to keep the grid safe, the publication of sensitive material about the grid crosses the line from transparency to irresponsibility, and gives those who would do us harm a roadmap to achieve malicious designs. The American people deserve better."

“To address physical vulnerability, it is also important to focus our efforts on modernizing our electric grid. Building the grid of the future will play a key role in addressing multiple security and reliability threats or situations. We should look to further deployment of phasor measurement units, wide-area management systems and enhanced situational awareness. Furthering efforts in the development and deployment of microgrids and smart grid technology will also greatly assist in addressing grid resiliency. These efforts, along with system-wide planning, are just a few examples of how we can increase our ability to make the grid more reliable and efficient.

Because it is difficult to build new transmission routes, existing big substations are becoming more crucial to handling electricity.

Converter station sites in Calvert and Wicomico County, MD and Sussex
County, DE were acquired;

Takeoff points into and out of the Chesapeake Bay were acquired;

Transition station locations in Dorchester County were acquired; and

Transmission line right-of-way for entire length was acquired, except for one property in Dorchester County where negotiation was pending.

In an unorthodox move, a little-known power trading firm has disclosed that it is under investigation by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) for market manipulation, mounting a vigorous public defence of its activities and arguing that Ferc has overreached in going after its trader.

Chen's trades made use of an obscure type of PJM transaction called 'up-to-congestion' (UTC) trades, which involve the scheduling of electricity flows across the border between PJM and one of its neighbouring wholesale power markets, such as the one operated by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (Miso). When carrying out a UTC trade, a market participant can specify the maximum level of congestion costs that he or she is willing to pay to move power across a particular path. For instance, if the threshold of the UTC trade is set at $50 per megawatt-hour (/MWh), then PJM will schedule the flow, as long as the congestion cost between the two specified nodes stays below $50/MWh. If the cost of congestion along that path rises above that level, the trade gets knocked out and no electricity flow is scheduled.

Powhatan – like other financial trading firms operating in US power markets – trades only 'virtual' power. In other words, whenever it schedules any electricity flows in the day-ahead market, it cancels them out in the real-time market, so no physical power actually flows. Such traders essentially act as arbitrageurs between the day-ahead and real-time power market.

Chen's trading strategy involved pairs of UTC trades, with two legs that ran in opposite directions along the same path — for instance, from the Miso border to a node in PJM, and back from that node to the Miso border. According to the documents posted on FercLitigation.com, Chen discovered a profitable trading strategy in which he could enter such paired UTC transactions and then collect money from transmission loss credits (TLCs) – a type of rebate payment that PJM makes to market participants that use its transmission lines. Until September 2010, when PJM implemented its rule change, it was possible for virtual traders such as Powhatan to collect TLCs from UTC transactions, even though they were not actually sending physical power through the grid.

Steve Fleishman - Wolfe
And in the future, do most of your contracts have that clause, so new ones do or not older ones or vice versa?

Leila Vespoli - EVP, Markets, and Chief Legal Officer
I think it would be safe to say that we are going to be adding that language where we can in the future.

FERC said PJM's proposal met the commission's criteria for approving waivers, as doing so would remedy a "concrete problem," would not harm third parties and would be limited in scope.

"FERC transmission regulation provides forward-looking formula rates, true-up mechanisms and premium authorized returns on equity. Transmission owners face limited revenue risk, owing to strong counterparty relationships with the operating utilities and the regional transmission organization," Moody's said.

Sam Brownback, Republican Kanas Governor, and lawmakers in a dozen other US states who fought off cynical attacks to repeal state Renewable Portfolio Standards, which have catalysed thousands of wind and solar projects across the country and generated hundreds of thousands of jobs.

hero |ˈhi(ə)rō|
noun (pl. heroes)
1 a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities: a war hero.

The recent disclosure of the manipulation of scientific evidence by climate researchers is exactly the kind of important information that needs to be brought to light. The emails and documents recently disclosed paint an alarming picture of the state of climate research. In the emails that have been disclosed we’ve seen evidence of manipulation, efforts to avoid freedom of act information requests, abuse of the peer review process and a research process that that is driven more by a political agenda than a quest for truth. [Brownback, DeMint, Ensign, Isakson, Vitter, and Wicker, 12/8/09]

Due to an exceptional amount of pressing business, the KCC inadvertently failed to notice the subject proceeding until after the date for timely intervention had passed.

...the KCC’s failure to file a timely intervention was based upon factors outside of its control.

[KCC] is the regulatory agency that has jurisdiction over the wholesale and retail rates that will be impacted by the proposed formula rate and incentive rate adders filed for approval in this docket.

The TrAIL Project originated in 2005 as part of PJM’s Project Mountaineer, whose objective was to enhance west-to-east transfer capability in the PJM transmission system.  PJM planned to use its RTEP process to identify a comprehensive plan for the project.  Following PJM’s announcement, Allegheny began reviewing transmission enhancement opportunities within the AP Zone of PJM that could expand west-to-east transfer capability and be incorporated in the RTEP.  On February 28, 2006, Allegheny formally proposed TrAIL to PJM as an effective solution to long-term reliability needs in the PJM region, and requested that PJM include this proposal in the RTEP as part of a major expansion of the PJM system.

Allegheny’s proposal described TrAIL as a 330-mile, 500-kV line stretching from the Wylie Ridge substation in the western panhandle of West Virginia to a new substation on the eastern side of the AP Zone in Frederick County, MD.  The project included installation of a static VAR compensator (SVC) of approximately 500-megavolt-ampere reactive power at Allegheny’s Meadow Brook Substation south of Winchester, VA.  The entire line would be in the AP Zone.  Allegheny proposed to begin initial engineering and planning in 2007, and to place the first phase in service in 2013.

On May 19, 2006, PJM released the 2006 RTEP Baseline report presenting its first 15-year regional transmission plan.  The report identified numerous facility overloads, voltage and thermal violations, and contingency overloads on Allegheny’s transmission system, and recommended enhancements to resolve them.  On June 22, 2006, the PJM Board approved the RTEP and directed construction of TrAIL with an in-service date of June 2011.
Allegheny filed its request for incentives for the TrAIL Project, in Docket No. EL06-54-000, concurrently with its proposal to PJM.

Reviewed materials on the Allegheny and FirstEnergy web sites and other key industry and news sources.

Analyzed the revised reconciliation that TrAILCo submitted December 19, 2011 to remove certain transaction costs related to the FirstEnergy-Allegheny merger improperly included in its 2011 formula rate.  Issued data requests to understand Allegheny’s procedures for tracking, accounting for, and allocating such merger-related costs to TrAILCo.  Examined how merger-related costs were improperly included in TrAILCo’s revenue requirement, how the error was detected, how TrAILCo worked with PJM to revise customer billings and refund the costs to customers.  Scheduled conference calls and interviewed TrAILCo staff during the site visit to clarify our understanding of these matters.

Audit staff found that TrAILCo included three categories of merger costs in its 2011 formula rate:  (1) $14,823 in postage, hotel rooms, security, and other outside services incorrectly charged to operating costs rather than to the special, non-recoverable accounts established for merger costs; (2) $347,654 in executive bonuses charged to recoverable accounts based on an incorrect determination by Allegheny’s accounting department that the bonuses were not merger-related; and (3) $43,718 in 2010 merger integration costs charged to recoverable accounts due to an incorrect interpretation that the Merger Order required only transaction-related costs to be excluded from rates.

Audit staff’s review showed that TrAILCo reported cumulative spending on TrAIL in its FERC-730 reports rather than actual spending in the latest calendar year, as the FERC-730 instructions on the Commission’s web site require.  For example, in its first FERC-730, TrAILCo reported spending $2.3 million on TrAIL during 2006.  For 2007 through 2011, TrAILCo reported spending $32.9 million, $105.9 million, $546.0 million, $930.6 million, and $1.009 billion, respectively.  These figures total $2.63 billion, 2.6 times the amount TrAILCo charged to Project work orders in 2006-2011.