More flexible gas-fired plants could fill a number of generation and ancillary service needs brought on by the increased use of renewable power. Dan Simon, a partner in the Energy and Project Finance Group at Ballard Spahr, attended the Utility Scale Flexible Power Summit in Denver and spoke to SNL Financial about whether flexible generation assets could be treated as transmission assets to get market credit for the plants' additional services.
"FERC has been loath to allow ancillary services to be sold to transmission providers at market-based rates," Mr. Simon told the publication. "It has been difficult for traditional transmission providers to develop ancillary service rates that appropriately allocate costs between load and intermittent resources. More flexible as-fired generation is not yet benefiting."