By William Opalka

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled Thursday that a power plant owner must pay unnecessary capacity charges because it failed to correct ISO-NE records before a deadline set by the RTO’s Tariff (EL15-57).

GenOn Energy Management, a unit of NRG Energy, asked FERC in April to excuse it from buying replacement capacity to meet an obligation it was capable of fulfilling with its own resources.

GenOn said ISO-NE credited its Canal 2 generator in Sandwich, Mass., with capacity of only 303 MW — rather than the plant’s actual 556.5-MW output — in the March Annual Reconfiguration Auction for the 2015-2016 capacity commitment period that began June 1. (See ISO-NE Error Could Cost GenOn Millions.)

ISO-NE said, and FERC agreed, that the Tariff requires participants to file restoration plans for any capacity shortfall within 10 business days after notification of the ARA results. “The provision also makes clear that after they receive notification of their qualified capacity from ISO-NE, the onus is on resources to provide a restoration plan, as necessary, and if they do not do so, ISO-NE will procure capacity on their behalf and charge them for it,” the commission wrote.

ISO-NE also said it wasn’t obligated to find out why no restoration plan was filed. (See ISO-NE: Plant Owner’s Responsibility to Flag Capacity Error.) FERC concurred. “We agree with ISO-NE that it is not ISO-NE’s responsibility to second-guess the market participant’s failure to submit a restoration plan after being notified of its qualified capacity,” it wrote.

The commission said reopening the auction as an alternative remedy would create market uncertainty.

In order to administer the capacity market, “ISO-NE must ensure that the auction results are final, and that, once the auction is concluded, market participants are able to take actions and enter into transactions immediately, based on those auction results,” it concluded.