H.R. 6176 — Electricity Transmission Scorecard Act

This section states congressional findings on the importance of electricity transmission facilities to interstate commerce, economic well-being, and national security; the need for transparent, standardized performance data to promote cost-effective investment, prevent discrimination, and protect ratepayers; inadequacies in existing fragmented reporting requirements; and the benefits of uniform reporting from all transmission utilities—including those not subject to Federal Power Act sections 205 or 206—to enhance comparability, market innovation, accountability, reliability, affordability, and efficiency.

This section directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to require each covered transmission owner to biannually develop, publish, and submit to the Secretary of Energy a Transmission Investment, Accountability, and Performance Scorecard (TIAPS report) evaluating 11 specified metrics. Those metrics assess (1) ratepayer affordability (i.e., cost of transmission services per unit of energy transmitted); (2) financing costs (e.g., capital structure, returns on equity, incentive rate adders); (3) investment prudency and cost recovery (e.g., cost disallowances, ratepayer versus shareholder contributions); (4) investment effectiveness (e.g., benefit-cost analyses, non-wires alternatives, grid-enhancing technologies); (5) capital expenditure bias (i.e., balance of capital versus operations and maintenance spending); (6) system reliability and availability (e.g., outages, North American Electric Reliability Corporation indicators); (7) physical system performance (e.g., losses, utilization relative to capacity); (8) interconnection and access fairness (e.g., processing times for affiliated versus unaffiliated entities); (9) non-operational cost recovery (e.g., lobbying, penalties recovered from customers); (10) interregional and regional planning integration (e.g., interregional transmission ties); and (11) any additional outcome-based matters. (Thus, the reports promote transparency into transmission owners' operational, financial, and planning performance affecting ratepayers and grid reliability.)

This section directs the Secretary, in collaboration with the Commission and the Administrator, to initiate not later than 12 months after enactment, and to establish and make available not later than 18 months after enactment, a public, searchable online portal housing scorecards and underlying data submitted to the Secretary under this Act. The Secretary must include in the portal each such scorecard together with its associated underlying data.

This section directs the Commission to hold public technical conferences at least once every three years to solicit stakeholder feedback on (1) the effectiveness of scorecard metrics in conveying entity performance; (2) the sufficiency and quality of scorecard data; (3) scorecard alignment with federal and state priorities, including electricity affordability, reliability, and congestion reduction; and (4) opportunities to refine metrics based on emerging technologies, grid conditions, and energy markets. The section further requires the Commission, for each rulemaking under section 3 and each such conference, to convene a 17-member stakeholder advisory group—with two representatives each from state public utility commissions, covered transmission owners, independent power producers, Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators, transmission planning entities, and ratepayer advocacy organizations; one from the Electric Reliability Organization; and two each from experts in energy data systems, grid modeling, or electricity market analytics and in energy systems performance—and to issue a written response to the group's advice within 60 days.

This section establishes definitions for 12 terms used in the Act, including (1) "Administrator" as the Administrator of the Energy Information Administration; (2) "Commission" as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; (3) "covered transmission owner" as any entity (other than an ISO, RTO, or transmission planning entity) that owns, operates, or controls transmission facilities connected to the bulk-power system (or capable of providing transmission service), with total non-bulk-power system capacity of 100 megawatts or greater under peak demand; (4) cross-references to Federal Power Act (16 U.S.C. 824o, 796) terms such as "bulk-power system," "Electric Reliability Organization," "Independent System Operator," "Regional Transmission Organization," and "transmitting utility"; (5) "grid-enhancing technology" as technologies improving transfer capacity, interconnection efficiency, or reducing losses without traditional transmission expansion (e.g., dynamic line ratings, advanced power flow controls, topology optimization, real-time monitoring, transformer upgrades); (6) "interregional interconnection" as facilities enabling energy transfer between transmission planning regions (including across Western, Eastern Interconnections, and ERCOT); (7) "reporting entity" as an entity required to submit a scorecard; (8) "scorecard" as a report required under section 3 from covered transmission owners, ISOs, RTOs, or transmission planning entities; (9) "seam" as a boundary between neighboring transmission systems or grid operators; (10) "Secretary" as the Secretary of Energy; (11) "transmission planning entity" as a non-RTO/ISO entity responsible for planning electric transmission deployment in a region; and (12) "transmission planning region" as a geographic area meeting FERC regional transmission planning requirements under specified orders (77 Fed. Reg. 64890; 89 Fed. Reg. 49280).