FERC Holds Technical Conference To Explore Fundamental Design Issues In Eastern Organized Markets

On May 1-2, 2017, FERC staff held a technical conference on wholesale energy and capacity market design, focused on markets operated by ISO New England Inc. ("ISO-NE"), New York Independent System Operator, Inc. ("NYISO"), and PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. ("PJM") (collectively, "Eastern RTOs and ISOs").  The goal of the conference was to explore the balance between FERC's regulation of these competitive wholesale markets and recent efforts by states to ensure that certain categories of generating resources receive sufficient revenue to continue operating.  Stakeholders from various sectors of the electricity industry attended to express concern that these eastern organized markets require regulatory intervention of some sort—with a regulatory response from FERC unlikely to take place until at least a three-Commissioner quorum is established.