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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 15 / Tuesday, January 26, 2021 / Notices
reclassification of related accumulated reserves for depreciation. In addition, there would be other impacts related to associated accumulated deferred income tax ADIT balances. Finally, related O&M expenses would need to be reclassified to the newly created expense accounts. Interested entities should address the potential burden that these reclassification requirements would create.
B. Modifications to FERC Form No. 1
12. Adding new non-hydro renewable plant and related O&M expenses to the USofA would require changes to the FERC Form No. 1 to report these accounts in an organized and transparent manner. Thus, we seek input from interested entities on how the Commission could modify FERC
Form No. 1 to accommodate any such changes.
Q4 We invite interested entities to submit comments regarding proposals for reporting the new accounts for nonhydro renewable plant and related O&M
expenses in FERC Form No. 1 and whether new reporting schedules and footnote disclosures would be required.
Interested entities should provide examples of any new reporting schedules and footnote disclosures.
Q5 We encourage interested entities to address the type of non-accounting information related to non-hydro renewable plant and related O&M
expenses that could be included in the modified FERC Form No. 1 to support rate development and to provide useful information to parties who utilize the financial reports.
C. Addressing Renewable Energy Credits 13. The USofA does not provide instructions for recording the purchase, generation or use of RECs. However, for accounting purposes, RECs are analogous to sulfur dioxide emission allowances, for which the Commission has developed accounting guidance. In Order No. 552, the Commission concluded that the sulfur dioxide emission allowances are appropriately classified as inventoriable items.18 To that end, the Commission established new inventory and expense accounts to record these emission allowances.
Account 158.1 Allowance Inventory includes the cost of allowances owned by the utility. The instructions to Account 158.1 provide for allowances to 18 See
Revisions to Uniform Systems of Accounts to Account for Allowances under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and Regulatory-Created Assets and Liabilities and to Form Nos. 1, 1F, 2
and 2A, Order No. 552, FERC Stats. and Regs.
30,967 cross-referenced at 62 FERC 61,299.

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be expensed to Account 509
Allowances as allowances are used.19
14. More recently, the Commission found it appropriate to apply the Order No. 552 accounting construct to the costs of RECs.20 Specifically, the Commission has found that RECs should be recorded in Account 158.1
when they are purchased or generated, and then expensed to Account 509 as they are used.21
15. We are considering updating the instructions for allowances recorded in Accounts 158.1 and 158.2 Allowance Withheld, and associated revenues and expenses recorded in Accounts 456
Other Electric Revenues and 509 to explicitly include activities related to RECs.22 Thus, we seek input from interested entities regarding updates to existing inventory accounts to accommodate RECs.
Q6 We are considering modifying Accounts 158.1, 158.2, and 509 to include the cost of RECs and modifying Account 456 to include revenues from the sale of RECs.23 We invite interested entities to comment on these potential modifications.
D. Assessing Rate Implications 16. It is possible that the proposed additions and modifications to the USofA and the corresponding changes to the FERC Form No. 1 could have a significant and measurable impact on rates for existing utilities. In addition to changes to the accounting and reporting systems, entities may have corresponding changes to their existing cost-of-service schedules for ratemaking purposes. For instance, entities that reclassify assets into the new non-hydro renewable accounts may need to include or exclude certain account balances from their rates to remain consistent with Commission approved rate schedules. For this reason, we seek input from interested entities.
Q7 We would like to receive input from interested entities as to how electric utilities with formula rates would be impacted if the Commission creates new plant and O&M expense accounts related to non-hydro renewables. We invite interested persons to submit comments regarding how affected utilities would address any such changes.
19 See
18 CFR part 101, General Instruction 21.
Illinois Co., 170 FERC 61,267 at P 52.

20 Ameren 21 Id.

22 Account 158.2 represents allowances withheld by the EPA to be later reclassified in Account 158.1
as they are released. Account 456 represents the account in which gross sales of RECs are to be recorded.
23 18 CFR part 101, Instructions for Accounts 158.1, 158.2, 456, and 509.

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III. Comment Procedures 17. The Commission invites interested persons to submit comments on the matters and issues proposed in this notice, including any related matters or alternative proposals that commenters may wish to discuss. Comments are due March 29, 2021, and Reply Comments are due April 26, 2021. Comments must refer to Docket No. RM2111000, and must include the commenters name, the organization they represent, if applicable, and their address.
18. The Commission encourages comments to be filed electronically via the eFiling link on the Commissions website at http www.ferc.gov. The Commission accepts most standard word-processing formats. Documents created electronically using wordprocessing software should be filed in native applications or print-to-PDF
format and not in a scanned format.
Commenters filing electronically do not need to make a paper filing.
19. Commenters that are not able to file comments electronically must send an original of their comments to:
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Secretary of the Commission, 888 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20426.
20. All comments will be placed in the Commissions public files and may be viewed, printed, or downloaded remotely as described in the Document Availability section below. Commenters on this proposal are not required to serve copies of their comments on other commenters.
IV. Document Availability 21. In addition to publishing the full text of this document in the Federal Register, the Commission provides all interested persons an opportunity to view and/or print the contents of this document via the internet through the Commissions Home Page http
www.ferc.gov. At this time, the Commission has suspended access to the Commissions Public Reference Room due to the Presidents March 13, 2020 proclamation declaring a National Emergency concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID19.
22. From the Commissions Home Page on the internet, this information is available on eLibrary. The full text of this document is available on eLibrary in PDF and Microsoft Word format for viewing, printing, and/or downloading.
To access this document in eLibrary, type the docket number excluding the last three digits of this document in the docket number field.
23. User assistance is available for eLibrary and the Commissions website during normal business hours from the
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