Department of Energy March 1, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) gives notice of the decision and order (Case No. CW-016) that grants to LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc. (LG) a waiver from the DOE clothes washer test procedure for determining the energy consumption of clothes washers. Under today's decision and order, LG shall be required to test and rate its clothes washers with larger clothes containers using an alternate test procedure that takes the larger capacities into account when measuring energy consumption.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) is proposing to revise its regulations to remedy undue discrimination in the procurement of frequency regulation service in the organized wholesale electricity markets. The emergence of technologies capable of responding more quickly than the generators that have historically provided frequency regulation service has prompted the Commission to evaluate market rules to ensure that they are not unduly discriminatory or fail to provide just and reasonable compensation for the service being provided. If found, the Commission proposes to remedy the undue discrimination by requiring a uniform price for regulation capacity paid to all cleared resources and a performance payment for the provision of frequency regulation, with such payment reflecting a resource's accuracy of performance. This proposed action helps to ensure that market rules do not present unnecessary barriers to the participation of all resource types in the wholesale ancillary services markets. The Commission seeks comment on the proposed regulations.