20VAC5-320-50: Interconnection, pricing, and access policies and practices

A. RTEs shall promote policies and practices for the interconnection of generating facilities and for the pricing and access for transmission service that are safe, reliable, efficient, not unduly discriminatory, and consistent with the orderly development of competition in the Commonwealth, as required in § 56-579 of the Code of Virginia.

B. Accordingly, such interconnection, pricing, and access policies shall, at a minimum:

1. Provide for efficiently priced transmission access to competing generating resources over as broad a region as possible;

2. Use transmission rates that do not discourage economic transactions, and do not encourage uneconomic transactions;

3. Be adaptable for purchasers of electricity at wholesale or at retail;

4. Provide for the efficient relief of transmission congestion through the redispatch, by direct orders or by coordination with customers and generators, of competitively priced generation on an economically efficient basis;

5. Provide for the efficient pricing of transmission transactions between different regional transmission organizations;

6. Ensure that (i) transmission-related decisions, including interconnection pricing, access, and planning, are made and (ii) operational procedures are developed openly with appropriate stakeholder input and will not harm the development of competitive markets;

7. Provide for effective market monitoring, including serving as a resource to assist the FERC and state regulatory commissions in the identification of existing market power and resolution of market power abuses;

8. Promote an environment that facilitates the development of an efficient generation market; and

9. Promote the construction of transmission facilities to enhance competitive markets within the boundaries of the RTE.