City of Tallahassee, FERC Docket No. NP10-143-000 (July 30, 2010)
Reliability Standard: BAL-001-0
Requirement: R1
Violation Risk Factor: Medium
Violation Severity Level: Lower
Region: FRCC
Issue: In November 2008 while preparing for an audit, the City of Tallahassee (TAL) self-reported that even though it, as a Balancing Authority, was operating within specified limits, it was unable to provide sufficient documentation on this point. From January 1, 2007 to May 8, 2008, TAL's Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system had overridden the 4-second data used to determine the annual Bias calculation, and therefore TAL could not show that it reached its fixed Frequency Bias value by observing and averaging the Frequency Response for several disturbances.
Finding: FRCC and TAL entered into a settlement agreement to resolve multiple alleged violations, whereby TAL neither admitted nor denied the violations but agreed to pay a penalty of $5,000 and to undertake other mitigation measures. The duration of the alleged BAL-003-0 violation was from June 18, 2007 to November 20, 2008, when the mitigation was completed for this alleged violation. FRCC found that the alleged violation of BAL-001-0 did not create a serious or substantial risk to bulk power system reliability since TAL actually determined its Frequency Bias setting with historical data from before the period when the 4-second data was not retained. Also, while the minimum bias setting is 1.0, TAL was using a bias setting of 1.44. Furthermore, NERC considered the fact that the alleged violations were TAL's first violation of the relevant Reliability Standards; the alleged violations were self-reported; TAL was cooperative during the enforcement process and did not attempt to conceal the alleged violations; TAL had a positive compliance program; and there were no additional mitigating or aggravating factors.
Penalty: $5,000 (aggregate for multiple violations)
FERC Order: Issued August 27, 2010 (no further review)
East Kentucky Power Cooperative, FERC Docket No. NP10-7-000 (November 13, 2009)
Reliability Standard: BAL-001-0
Requirement: R1
Violation Risk Factor: Medium
Violation Severity Level: Lower
Region: SERC
Issue: East Kentucky Power Cooperative's (EKPC) monthly CPS data submittals indicated that it failed to achieve a rolling 12-month average CPS1 value 100% or greater, as required by the standard, for the months of February, March, April, May and June of 2008.
Finding: SERC assessed a penalty only for the violation associated with the rolling 12-month period ending June 30, 2008 because it was the only violation for which all data used for calculating the annual CPS1 and for determining compliance with the standard was from the period after the standard was approved as mandatory and enforceable by FERC. Mitigating factors also included: (1) EKPC self-reported the violation and promptly took steps to resolve the issue; (2) there were no repetitive violations and no prior history of similar violations by EKPC; (3) EKPC agreed to a mitigation plan that required it to achieve a more stringent minimum monthly CPS1 performance requirement of 110% or greater during the mitigation period which could have exposed EKPC to additional penalties if missed; and (4) EKPC cooperated with SERC's investigation.
Penalty: $90,000 ($115,000 aggregate for multiple violations)
FERC Order: Issued December 11, 2009 (no further review)
