Dive Brief:
- New York's Public Service Commission (PSC) and Central Hudson Gas & Electric have filed separate petitions to block the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) plan to create a new capacity zone.
- FERC recently declared the lower Hudson Valley, which includes New York City, a new capacity zone and raise power prices by a projected 6% for residential customers and 10% for industrial customers.
- The PSC contends this would place the burden of $280 million in costs on customers in the next year. FERC has yet to respond to the PSC's concerns.
Dive Insight:
The new capacity zone's goal is to make generation more profitable and encourage investment in new generation resources.
The new prices are imposed under the Federal Power Act, which New York commission chair Audrey Zibelman said calls for The Federal Power Act calls for wholesale electricity prices to be "just and reasonable," NY PSC Chair Audrey Zibelman said, adding that FERC's plan will impose high costs on consumers without providing "any real remedy" to the larger issue of generation profitability.
New York state's power grid is currently undergoing the beginnings of a radical transformation under the PSC's Reforming the Energy Vision initiative, which will encourage utilities to become platform providers and enable distributed generation.