Ask What RTO Markets Can Do for Customers
Jay Morrison is an Energy Bar Association Primer Dean and Vice President of Regulatory Issues at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. This article does not necessarily represent the views of NRECA or any of its members.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the electric utility industry are embroiled in several complicated and controversial discussions.
Those critical issues include conflicts between state policy and organized wholesale markets and the role of "self-supply" in RTO capacity markets.
They also include whether RTOs or states should or even may offer support to generation resources for their resilience benefit as well as the right of "relevant electric retail regulatory authorities" to decide which distributed energy resources may participate in wholesale electric markets.
There is a common thread among them. There is a common approach that would allow all to be resolved in a consistent fashion.
They all arise from a recent inversion of the traditional vision of the electric utility industry. They can largely be addressed if we recognize that the inversion is unnecessary, arguably unlawful, and counter to the public interest.