By Michael Kuser
FERC on Thursday granted a waiver request from Public Service Company of New Hampshire (PSNH), allowing ISO-NE to accept its restoration plan for the Lost Nation generating unit, which the company submitted one business day after the deadline under the RTO’s Tariff (ER18-465).
Eversource Energy, PSNH’s parent company, in January completed the sale of its fossil-fuel generation units in New Hampshire to Granite Shore Power.
On Oct. 20, ISO-NE flagged the oil-fired combustion turbine in Groveton, N.H., for having a significant decrease in capacity below its cleared capacity supply obligation (CSO) of 13.97 MW for the RTO’s 2018-2019 capacity commitment period.
Under the rules governing the RTO’s annual reconfiguration auctions, Lost Nation had 10 business days to either purchase additional capacity to replace the shortfall or submit a restoration plan showing how it would be able to meet its obligation.
PSNH said the decrease in capacity occurred because a summer seasonal claimed capability audit was not performed. An Eversource employee intended to file a restoration plan showing that Lost Nation was dispatched four days in September 2017 and thus should be capable of supplying output to meet its awarded CSO.
The utility said that two events caused the delay in submitting the restoration plan.
First, the mother of the employee charged with submitting the plan died on Oct. 29, 2017, while the plan was out for review. Then, after a strong storm tore through the state on Oct. 30, the employee was called to storm duty and performed three consecutive 13-hour shifts until being released on Nov. 2. He was then given leave to prepare for his mother’s Nov. 4 memorial service.
The combination of events distracted the employee from submitting the restoration plan by the close of the Friday, Nov. 3 submission window; he submitted the plan the morning of Monday, Nov. 6. The RTO said it could not unilaterally waive the Tariff-imposed deadline.
In its Feb. 15 decision, the commission found that “PSNH acted in good faith by submitting the restoration plan as soon as possible after it discovered the omission.” The commission also noted that PSNH’s waiver request was uncontested.