ETRACOM and its principal trader Michael Rosenberg said last week they will seek a de novo review of FERC’s allegations that they manipulated the CAISO energy market in a scheme that allegedly netted $315,000 in profits. That would mean a federal court would decide all issues of fact and law in the beginning of the case, rather than the company potentially appealing an unfavorable FERC ruling afterward.
The company announced its decision in its response to FERC’s Dec. 16 Order to Show Cause (IN16-2), which accused the company of submitting uneconomic virtual supply transactions at the New Melones intertie at the CAISO border in order to affect power prices and benefit its congestion revenue rights there. (See FERC Seeks $2.5M Fine in CAISO Market Manipulation.) The company said its bidding was proper and that FERC “cherry-picked facts” to show manipulation, ignoring CAISO’s market design flaws and modeling errors. Its response includes statements from former FERC attorney and economist Shaun Ledgerwood, of The Brattle Group, and Harvard University professor William Hogan in support.
“This proceeding is significant as it is the first public enforcement action by FERC where every document, email and instant message, as well as witness testimony, supports legitimate trading activity; significant undisclosed and unknowable market design flaws and software pricing/modeling errors caused the alleged harms and substantially influenced the underlying trading activity; and a grid operator violated its own tariff,” the company’s attorney, Robert Fleishman, said in a statement.
More: ETRACOM Answer to Order to Show Cause
NRC’s Ostendorff Leaving After Term Ends in June
Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner William Ostendorff said he will not seek another term at the agency and will leave when his current term expires June 30.
Ostendorff has been on the commission six years. He said he will return to a teaching position at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Ostendorff, a Republican, is one of two remaining commissioners from the post-Fukushima period, when the commission came under fire for its response following the meltdown in Japan.
More: The Hill
EPA Says Luminant Coal Plants Violate Federal Standards
EPA has tentatively determined that sulfur dioxide in the air around Luminant’s coal-fired Big Brown, Martin Lake and Monticello plants violates federal standards.
The agency announced a plan in December requiring reductions in SO2 emissions at those plants and four others in Texas. The test results released Feb. 17 target the same pollutant, but are triggered by a different part of the Clean Air Act.
Luminant questioned EPA’s latest testing. “The proposed SO2 designations by the EPA are based on computer modeling funded by environmental groups,” spokesman Brad Watson said. “We firmly believe these models do not accurately predict actual emissions measurements and that these designations should be determined by real-world emissions data from air quality monitors.”
More: The Dallas Morning News
NRC Info Officer Moving to USDA Farm Service Agency
Darren Ash, chief information officer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the past nine years, is leaving to take a similar position with the Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency.
While at NRC, Ash prepared the agency for what was expected to be a flood of permit applications for new nuclear plants. But when that didn’t happen, he turned his attention to transitioning the agency to cloud computing and mobile applications.
More: Federal News Radio
NRC Increasing Oversight at Entergy’s Pilgrim Plant
Entergy’s Pilgrim nuclear station is coming under increased oversight from Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors following a performance review of the Massachusetts station. The commission said the scrutiny is a result of reviews of issues the plant has had with safety relief valves.
The inspection took place in September. The 728-MW plant experienced difficulty during a harsh snow storm last year when it lost offsite power, triggering an automatic shutdown. Entergy took the plant offline earlier this year as a blizzard approached.
Entergy has said it will permanently close the plant by 2019.
More: Reuters; The Patriot Ledger
NRC Finds Five Safety Violations at PSEG’s Salem-Hope Creek
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it found five safety violations at the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear plants but characterized the violations as low significance. The three-reactor complex is operated by PSEG Nuclear.
Four of the violations were found at Salem Units 1 and 2: failing to keep appropriate maintenance records for containment cooling fans, failure to conduct proper equipment tests, improper removal of a radiation barrier and failure to properly maintain a radiation monitor. The fifth violation, also ranked “low” by NRC, related to Hope Creek employees’ failure to document and correct a loss of heat and air conditioning in the station’s main control room during a station blackout.
A PSEG spokesman said the violations are being corrected.
More: The News Journal
TVA Considers Sale of Mothballed Ala. Nuke
Citing a lower-than-expected load-growth forecast, the Tennessee Valley Authority has decided against building two new units at its Bellefonte nuclear plant and is considering selling the two incomplete units, where construction halted in the 1980s.
In filings with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federally owned company withdrew its combined operating licenses for the proposed Units 3 and 4 at the site, a 1,600-acre peninsula on the Tennessee River near Hollywood, Ala. TVA CEO Bill Johnson later said the authority would consider selling the entire site, if it made sense for shareholders.
“It’s time we answer the question of whether TVA is serving the public well by retaining control of the Bellefonte site, or if others could make more beneficial use of it,” Johnson said. “And with economic development as a cornerstone of our mission, TVA wants to know if there is an entity interested in investing and creating jobs at this location.”
More: GenerationHub