Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 888 First Street, N.E.
Washington, DC 20426
Subject: Protest by Borrego in FERC Docket ER22-391
Secretary Bose:
RENEW Northeast, Inc. (“RENEW”)[1] offers this letter to comment on the protest by Borrego Solar Systems, Inc. (“Borrego”) to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or “Commission”) that concerns the ISO New England (“ISO” or “ISO-NE”) November 9, 2021, Informational Filing pertaining to its sixteenth Forward Capacity Auction (“FCA 16”).
Borrego explained that it submitted a New Capacity Qualification package for its Wendell Energy Storage Project (“Wendell Project”) with a requested Offer Floor Price (“OFP”) assuming a 26.2 percent realized federal Investment Tax Credit (“ITC”) based on the provision in the Build Back Better Act now pending in Congress that applies the ITC to energy storage for the first time. The Internal Market Monitor (“IMM”) of ISO-NE mitigated the assumed 26.2 percent value to zero on the basis that the ITC assumption was speculative as the legislation has not yet become law. Borrego requests FERC require the IMM to update the Wendell Project’s and any similarly situated storage resources’ OFP to reflect a battery storage ITC in FCA 16 if legislation to that effect has passed prior to January 23, 2022.
If a storage ITC is created by January 23, 2022, RENEW supports the Commission directing the IMM to update the Wendell Project’s and any similarly situated storage resources’ OFP to reflect a battery storage ITC in FCA 16 for that tax change. Doing so is just and reasonable, non-speculative, and will ensure that OFPs reflect “prevailing market conditions” going into the auction.[2] RENEW has long recommended that ISO-NE reflect periodic changes to federal tax credits for energy systems particularly. Several years will pass when a full recalculation of the ORTP values to reflect such tax law changes does not happen (e.g., FCAs 17 and 18), leaving it to the individual OFP process to reflect this change in the interim. This change to update ISO-NE’s OFP calculation for similarly situated resources is simple and straightforward. Because the ITC revenue a project receives has a large impact on the project’s economics, accurately reflecting current law ensures that the OFPs capture market expectations and that consumers do not overpay for capacity.
Thank you for considering RENEW’s support of the Borrego position.
Sincerely,
Francis Pullaro
Executive Director
[1] The comments expressed herein represent the views of RENEW and not necessarily those of any particular member of RENEW. RENEW serves to unite environmental advocates and the renewable energy industry for the purpose of coordinating the ideas and resources of its members with the goal of increasing environmentally sustainable energy generation in the Northeast from the region’s abundant, indigenous renewable resources. RENEW has focused on highlighting the value of grid-scale resources – specifically offshore and onshore wind, solar, energy storage and hydropower – and the benefits of transmission investment to deliver renewable energy to load centers in the Northeast. RENEW members own and/or are developing large-scale wind, solar, hydropower, energy storage and high-voltage transmission facilities across the Northeast. They also manufacture multi-megawatt class wind turbines.
[2] ISO-NE Tariff § III.A.21.2(b)(i).