By William Opalka
Maxim Power will pay $8 million to settle a FERC complaint that it manipulated the New England power market in a fuel-switching scheme (IN15-4).
FERC alleged that in July and August 2010, the Canadian company submitted offers for its 181-MW dual-fuel generating station in Pittsfield, Mass., based on fuel oil prices when it actually burned less expensive natural gas. The plant provides voltage support to the ISO-NE market.
Pittsfield Plant Source: Maxim Power
Under the consent agreement approved last week with FERC’s Office of Enforcement, Maxim agreed to pay a $4 million fine and disgorge another $4 million in earnings to ISO-NE but did not admit guilt.
FERC issued Maxim a $5 million fine in May 2015 and sued the company in U.S. District Court two months later to collect the money. On July 21, 2016, the court rejected Maxim’s motion to dismiss the case.
The settlement also closes FERC investigations into allegations that the company gamed ISO-NE market mitigation rules in 2012 and 2013 and that it improperly boosted its generators’ outputs during testing in order to collect inflated capacity payments from 2010 to 2013. (See Maxim to FERC: Prosecute or Drop Probe.)
FERC Chairman Norman Bay, the former head of the Office of Enforcement, did not participate in the decision approving the settlement.