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FERC Approves Regional Order 1000 Compliance Filings

ColumbiaGrid’s Stakeholders and Interested Parties: On May 12, 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“Commission”) in the attached letter below, accepted, without conditions, the portions of the Fourth Amended and Restated Order 1000 Functional Agreement that were included in the jurisdictional transmission providers’ (i.e. Avista Corporation and Puget Sound Energy) Attachment K’s of their Open Access Transmission Tariffs (OATT’s) as satisfactorily complying with Order 1000.

“It been a long march to get to this point,” said Patrick Damiano, ColumbiaGrid’s president and CEO, “covering nearly five years from the Commission issuing its final rule Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation by Transmission Owning and Operating Public Utilities, Order No. 1000, on July 21, 2011, to the recent May 12, 2016, ruling.” Along the way, ColumbiaGrid and the planning parties developed two revised versions of the planning and expansion functional agreement (“PEFA,” the third and fourth amended and restated versions of PEFA, neither of which became effective) and five versions of the Order 1000 Agreement (including the original version of the Order 1000 Agreement plus four amended and restated versions). “Congratulations to all of the Members and planning parties on finally attaining compliance with Order 1000,” said Mr. Damiano.

The Order 1000 Agreement provides a regulatory compliance overlay to ColumbiaGrid’s single-utility unified regional planning process as provided in the Second Amended and Restated Planning and Expansion Functional Agreement (“PEFA-2”). ColumbiaGrid has been providing regional and interregional Order 1000 transmission planning since January of 2015. An order approving interregional compliance was received June 1, 2015. Order 1000 transmission planning is another example of how ColumbiaGrid is fulfilling its mission in providing services that help ColumbiaGrid’s Members and planning parties solve complex issues related to grid planning and expansion.

ColumbiaGrid, a non-profit membership corporation, was formed in 2006 to improve the operational efficiency, reliability, and planned expansion of the northwest transmission grid. The members are Avista Corp., Bonneville Power Administration, Chelan County PUD, Grant County PUD, Puget Sound Energy, Seattle City Light, Snohomish County PUD and Tacoma Power. Cowlitz PUD and Douglas County PUD are non-member participants in grid expansion planning.

FERC Letter Order Docket No. ER13-94 et al