Jennings, Strouss & Salmon, PLC announced that Debra D. Roby, Joel L. Greene and Alan I. Robbins have been listed in the 2012 Washington DC Super Lawyers^® in the area of Energy and Natural Resources.

Roby is Chair of the firm’s Energy practice group and has extensive experience representing clients before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and related courts. She counsels clients on a variety of energy matters, including electric transmission access and rate proceedings, regional transmission organizations, organized electric power markets, hydro-electric licensing and compliance, contract negotiations, complaint proceedings, NERC reliability compliance, audits and appeals, and other matters.

Greene has more than 35 years assisting clients in energy regulatory matters, legal strategic planning, contract negotiations and advocacy before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, US Department of Transportation (PHMSA), state commissions and the courts. Greene is very active in the energy industry, having served on the North American Energy Standards Board, Edison Electric Institute Order 636 Task Force, and as an officer of the Energy Bar Association. In addition, he served as chair of the International District Energy Association (IDEA).

Robbins is an experienced administrative litigator before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and related courts. For over 30 years, Mr. Robbins has helped his clients navigate a broad range of energy issues, including restructuring of the electric industry and the development electric power markets, traditional electric rate matters, utility merger proceedings, contract negotiations, hydropower licensing, project development, and overall business strategies. His clients include municipal joint action agencies, generation and transmission cooperatives, a state utility commission, individual municipal and cooperative electric systems, larger end-users, and other market participants.

The selections for the top attorneys in Washington, DC are made by the research team at Super Lawyers, which is a service of the Thomson Reuters Legal Division based in Eagan, MN. Each year, the research team undertakes a rigorous multi-phase selection process that includes a survey of attorneys, independent evaluation of candidates by the attorney-led research staff, a peer review of candidates by practice area, and a good-standing and disciplinary check. Only five percent of attorneys are named by Super Lawyers.

By Joel Greene

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation (“Reclamation”) has recently added 373 existing Reclamation conduits and canals, with the combined potential of generating an additional 365,219 megawatt-hours of hydropower annually, to its prior year’s Report that had identified 191 existing Reclamation dam and reservoir sites with a potential of 1.2 million MWh of power annually.  Both reports may be viewed at www.usbr.gov/power.

The March 2012 report (released April 12, 2012), entitled “Site Inventory and Hydropower Energy Assessment of Reclamation Owned Conduits,” finds that while sites were identified in 13 of the 17 western states, approximately 70% of the capacity and energy potential on Reclamation owned conduits is located in Colorado, Wyoming and Oregon.  In Arizona, twenty-six canal sites were identified with a potential installed capacity of approximately 5 MW and potential annual energy production of 28,464,753 kWh.

Organized by region and by state, the report identifies for each canal site: the structure type, potential installed capacity, potential annual energy, design head, maximum turbine flow, plant factor, months of potential generation, distance to closest distribution or transmission line, and available flow data period. A minimum head for a technically feasible micro-hydropower project was determined to be 5 feet; and only sites with at least 4 months of annual operation that could produce 50kW of capacity based on gross head and the design flow of the canal were included in the Report.

While this latest Report may assist irrigation districts, cities, municipalities, and cooperatives in determining whether to study the feasibility of developing the hydropower potential of the identified sites, it is also designed to assist private developers interested in hydropower development utilizing these resources. To that end, the authors have alerted potential developers to the jurisdictional split between Reclamation and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) over hydropower development at Reclamation facilities.  Following a basket of cases in the 1980’s challenging FERC’s jurisdiction over private development at Reclamation facilities, procedures for handling such cases were resolved through a Memorandum of Understanding between Reclamation (Lease of Power Privilege Process) and FERC (Licensing and Exemption procedures) in the late 1990’s.  Jennings Strouss attorneys represented entities involved in certain of those cases. In the event of a conflict, those procedures will be instrumental in determining the appropriate agency’s jurisdiction, with the outcome dependent on the authorizing legislation for the particular project.

Ken Sundlof, a partner at Jennings Strouss, recently was interviewed on the Terry Gilberg Show, on KFYI-AM, about renewable energy, and new developments in the natural gas industry. Excerpts of this radio program may be heard online.

We are pleased to present the Office of Enforcement’s 2011 State of the Markets
Report. The State of the Markets Report is staff’s annual opportunity to share our
assessment on the natural gas, electric, and other energy markets.
The presentation is based on conclusions of the staff and not necessarily those of the
Commission, the Chairman or any of the individual Commissioners.  Click HERE to see Full Report

Duke Energy and Progress Energy filed a revised wholesale market power mitigation plan with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as part of their proposed merger.

The plan provides more details on the notice of intent to file a mitigation plan submitted to the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) on Feb. 22.

It requests that the FERC issue orders approving the mitigation plan, the Joint Dispatch Agreement and the Joint Open Access Transmission Tariff within 60 days of the filing, and no later than June 8, 2012. The companies intend to seek final merger-related approvals from the NCUC and the Public Service Commission of South Carolina (PSCSC) prior to the July 8, 2012, merger agreement termination date. (more…)