Bonneville Power Authority (BPA) violated its tariff in failing to provide 227 MW of short-term capacity to Idaho Power, when the capacity was availabile and the Idaho company was next in the bidding queue, FERC said in an order issued Monday (EL01-66).

On March 2, BPA posted 577 MW of firm monthly available transmission service. It first honored three requests for 100 MW each from TransAlta Energy Marketing, leaving 277 available. BPA said it skipped next-in-line Idaho Power, which had requested 500 MW, and awarded the remaining 277 MW of capacity again to TransAlta, which came after IP in the bidding queue in three increments of 100 MW, 100 MW and 77 MW.

When Idaho Power later discovered and complained that it was skipped, BPA said it had not offered the capacity to Idaho Power because it could only partially fill IP’s request. Bonneville maintained it only had to fill partial requests for long term service. The Commission pointed out that FERC’s pro forma tariff provides that a transmission provider must offer and provide the portion of a request for firm point-to-point transmission service as can be accommodated. There is no distinction in that case between firm and short term service.

However, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s order said that since it was the first time it had explicitly stated the tariff’s application to short term service, and because assigning the 227 MW to IP now, as the Idaho company had requested would be “more disruptive to existing transactions than warranted by the violation,” it would not require BPA to supply the power. However, BPA must change its procedures immediately, FERC said, in declining to allow Bonneville to hold off until Oct. 1 when the company installs an amended tariff.

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