An appeals court has dismissed a challenge to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission order that streamlines the connection of new electricity sources to the dominant Eastern power grid.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found Tuesday that Hecate Energy lacked legal standing to challenge the order. The renewable energy developer had objected to FERC’s approval of PJM Interconnection’s 2022 plan to clear a backlog of interconnection requests.
PJM, which operates the regional electric grid in 13 states and the District of Columbia, had proposed expediting requests with assessed upgrades of $5 million or less. The new system replaced a first-come, first-served approach to processing interconnection requests.
Hecate Energy argued that FERC had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in deciding that setting a $5 million cap was “unduly discriminatory.”