Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
2/1/13
Illinois regulators this week denied a handful of requests from several stakeholders that requested a rehearing related to FutureGen 2.0’s electricity sourcing agreement. Three of five members of the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) voted Jan. 29 to deny the separate rehearing requests from the Coalition of Energy Suppliers, the Retail Energy Supply Association, the Illinois Competitive Energy Association and the utility Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) regarding different aspects of FutureGen’s 20-year sourcing agreement last week. The Commission’s Administrative Law Judge Larry Jones, who originally recommended that the ICC reject the FutureGen contract, advised Jan. 29 that the ICC not grant a rehearing for the purpose of taking new evidence.
In its petition for rehearing, ComEd, one of the state’s two major utilities, said the Commission does not have the authority to require a utility to procure electricity from ‘clean coal’ sources for certain customers and that the ICC cannot require them to make purchases on behalf of alternative retail electric suppliers in the state. Under the 2013 procurement plan approved by ICC in December, ComEd and the state’s other major utility, Ameren Illinois, would be required to purchase all 166 MW of gross electricity expected to be generated at the $1.65 billion carbon capture and storage facility over 20 years. In order to recover those associated costs, the utilities would be allowed to impose a new or modified tariff from all of their respective retail customers. “This approach should be rejected as it is contrary to law by requiring the utilities to purchase electricity generated using clean coal technology for customers other than their eligible retail customers,” ComEd said in its rehearing request.
Meanwhile, the Retail Energy Supply Association, a trade group representing competitive retail electric suppliers, said the ICC does not have the authority to force alternative retail electric suppliers in the state to enter into a sourcing agreement with the FutureGen facility. That group questioned an ICC determination that all alternative retail electric suppliers in the state must enter into the FutureGen sourcing agreement. Even though the ICC ultimately said those alternative suppliers would not have to directly do that, and instead would purchase that power indirectly from ComEd and Ameren, making that decision moot, RESA’s Illinois Chairman Roy Boston said in an interview that the group wanted to take a “preventative” measure with its rehearing request. “Our concern is that if [any provisions are eventually] reversed…that it could be thrown back onto us RESA suppliers,” he said, adding that RESA wants to have all of its legal boundaries covered in case that ever changes.
ICC Approved 20-Year FutureGen Agreement in December
The rehearing requests come ahead of a second phase of hearings related to the oxyfuel combustion project aimed at hashing out many of the details of the sourcing agreement. Those hearings will also consider rates and other details like annual input costs, ICC staff’s recommendations for annual audits, reconciliations and periodic benchmark tests and other unfinished issues moving forward. The Department of Energy is still reviewing the FutureGen Alliance’s Phase II applications for the project. The Department’s decision will determine if project developers can move forward to a 16-month front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase. DOE must also rule on a novation request from the FutureGen Alliance, as well as the consortium’s agreement with Ameren to purchase the power generating unit that will host the project at the now-mothballed Meredosia power station in western Illinois. A DOE spokesperson told GHG Monitor last month that the Department is reviewing all of the Alliance’s requests for the project and that it will make its decisions within the coming weeks.
