On June 19, 2014, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
("FERC") issued a notice of proposed rulemaking
("NOPR") proposing to revise its policies for
applications to sell energy, capacity, and ancillary services at
market-based rates.
Generation owners and power marketers that sell wholesale
energy, capacity, or ancillary services in the continental United
States, outside of the area operated by the Electric Reliability
Council of Texas, must obtain prior authorization from FERC to sell
at market-based rates. FERC grants requests for market-based
rate authority from sellers that can demonstrate that they and
their affiliates lack or have adequately mitigated horizontal and
vertical market power in the relevant geographic market. FERC
uses a seller's balancing authority area or the relevant
regional transmission organization ("RTO") or independent
system operator market, as applicable, as the default geographic
market. A seller that obtains market-based rate
