Department of Energy April 27, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Western Area Power Administration (Western), a Federal power marketing agency of the Department of Energy (DOE), will apply the Energy Planning and Management Program (Program) Power Marketing Initiative (PMI), as modified in this notice, to the Boulder Canyon Project (BCP), as proposed in a Federal Register notice (FRN) published on November 20, 2009. As a result, Western will extend a major percentage of the marketable capacity and energy to existing BCP customers. The remaining marketable resource shall form a resource pool that shall be marketed by Western to eligible customers by means of a public process. Western has determined that all BCP electric service contracts resulting from this effort shall have a term of thirty (30) years commencing October 1, 2017. Western is also making new proposals relative to the BCP remarketing effort including marketable capacity and energy, a resource pool percentage, and excess energy provisions, as described in this notice. Western is accepting public comments on these proposals. All comments previously submitted in response to Western's November 20, 2009, notice will be considered in this process and are not required to be resubmitted.

Under section 215(d)(2) of the Federal Power Act, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approves regional Reliability Standard TOP-007-WECC-1 (System Operating Limits) developed by the Western Electric Coordinating Council (WECC) and submitted to the Commission for approval by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. The primary purpose of this regional Reliability Standard is to ensure that actual flows and associated scheduled flows on major WECC transfer paths do not exceed system operating limits for more than 30 minutes. The Commission also approves the retirement of WECC regional Reliability Standard TOP-STD-007-0, which is replaced by the regional Reliability Standard approved in this Final Rule. The Commission also directs WECC to modify the associated violation risk factors and violation severity levels.