By William Opalka

A power generator accused of market manipulation in New England has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to terminate the case (IN15-4).

Maxim Power on April 6 filed a response to FERC’s Office of Enforcement, which last month replied to Maxim’s answers to an Order to Show Cause. (See Fuel-Burn Allegation Meant to Force Settlement of Unrelated Cases, Maxim Says.)

FERC issued the order in February, accusing the company of billing ISO-NE for oil at its 181-MW plant in Pittsfield, Mass., while actually burning cheaper natural gas during a July 2010 heat wave. In dispute are a series of emails between Maxim employee Kyle Mitton and the Internal Market Monitor.

“Staff’s reply contains no credible evidence that Maxim or Mr. Mitton omitted any material fact in any of their communications with the IMM which left the IMM with any false impressions about what fuel actually was burned at Pittsfield,” Maxim said.

In its reply, Enforcement said Maxim “made a series of carefully managed statements about pipeline restrictions and the theoretical possibility of losses from offering gas and burning oil, and said nothing about what was actually happening at Pittsfield.”

In addition to the Pittsfield plant, Maxim operates two other plants in ISO-NE: CDECCA, a 62-MW cogeneration plant in Hartford, Conn., and Pawtucket Power, a 63.5-MW cogeneration plant in Pawtucket, R.I.