FERC Approves Stipulation & Consent Agreement for Generator Outage Coordination and Notification Violations

On February 3, 2011, FERC approved a Stipulation and Consent Agreement with Dartmouth Power Associates Limited Partnership (“Dartmouth Power”) for violations of FERC’s regulations and the ISO New England (“ISO-NE”) tariff.  These violations stemmed from Dartmouth Power’s failure to coordinate with and report a generator outage to ISO-NE.

On June 13, 2008, Consolidated Edison Co. offered energy from Dartmouth Power’s generating unit (“Dartmouth Unit”) for delivery on June 14 in ISO-NE’s day-ahead market, consistent with the Dartmouth Unit’s capacity obligation as a capacity resource in the ISO-NE market.  When the unit did not receive a day-ahead commitment for June 14 from ISO-NE, the unit’s operators arranged for repairs to the unit that required the unit to be out-of-service.  In violation of the ISO-NE tariff, neither the operators nor Dartmouth Power contacted ISO-NE to schedule an outage of the unit.  Also, the operator failed to notify ISO-NE that the unit was unavailable once it became clear that the unit would not be able to timely respond to a dispatch call by ISO-NE.  When ISO-NE dispatchers attempted to dispatch the unit, a Dartmouth operator stated that the facility could not respond because the generator was being repaired.  ISO-NE subsequently withheld a $231,952.50 monthly capacity payment to Dartmouth Power because it had failed to timely declare the outage.

Following an investigation, FERC Enforcement Staff determined that Dartmouth Power violated FERC’s regulation in 18 C.F.R. 35.41(a) because it did not follow ISO-NE requirements regarding maintenance and outage notification.  This FERC regulation requires sellers to undertake maintenance and declare outages in a manner that complies with organized market rules.  In addition, Dartmouth Power violated FERC’s regulation in 18 C.F.R. 35.41(b) because operators did not notify ISO-NE that the unit was unavailable for dispatch, so the unit’s real-time energy offer was misleading.  This FERC regulation requires sellers to provide accurate and factual information, and not submit false information, or omit material information in communications with RTOs.

The Commission decided not to require a civil penalty for these violations because Dartmouth Power already had to forego its monthly capacity payment for violation of ISO-NE’s tariff.  However, the Commission specifically stated that it views the violations as serious, and but for ISO-NE’s withholding of this payment, the Commission likely would have assessed a civil penalty.

This order serves as a reminder that generation owners must follow organized market rules when taking their units out-of-service for repair.  In addition, generation owners should have internal procedures, training and internal audits to ensure that employees know and are following the organized market rules.  Please let us know if we can be of assistance in your compliance efforts.

To access the Commission Order Approving the Stipulation and Consent Agreement, please click here.

For more information, please contact Toni Frost at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 202-296-1500 or Linda Kizuka at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   or 202-296-1500.