National Regulatory Research Institute
Carl Pechman is the Director of NARUC’s National Regulatory Research Institute.
The National Regulatory Research Institute's January report, "Whither the FERC?" points out that the three northeast independent system operators — New York ISO, ISO New England, and PJM — have twenty-seven percent of U.S. electric load. So, it matters a lot that ever since they formed during the restructuring decade of the nineteen nineties, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has struggled to structure and price their "markets" for electric generating capacity.
The report's author, NRRI's director, believes "that FERC's magic formula for wholesale electric price-making and capital cost recovery is increasingly invalid as a proxy for just and reasonable rates." We wanted to know more about what the report says on how to fix the problem and why doing so is essential for the industry's transformation to a decarbonized and more electrified future, leading to the conversation below with the author. Do you also want to take a look at the report? Check out https://bit.ly/whitherferc.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: Why publish this paper now?
Carl Pechman: There are a number of reasons for writing the paper now. The first is that the polarization between FERC and state regulatory Commissions seems to have reached a new level with the issuance of the PJM MOPR order.