Retail Supplier Files Complaint At FERC Over Incorrect Assignment Of Load Obligation At RTO

March 3, 2020

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Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

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Liberty Power Holdings, LLC ('Liberty') hereby files a Complaint against Eversource Energy Company ('Eversource') and ISO-New England, Inc. ('ISO-NE') at FERC in which Liberty seeks compensation for what Liberty alleges is improperly calculated and billed charges relating to Load that was not the responsibility of Liberty during November of 2018, in alleged violation of the Federal Power Act and the ISO-NE Tariff.

Liberty alleged in the complaint that, "Eversource is the utility which is responsible for reporting Liberty’s load to ISO-NE. During November and December of 2018, Eversource incorrectly reported to ISO-NE that load from a Smith & Wesson account (54-845691039) ('Load') was the responsibility of Liberty. Eversource made this reporting error for Load in both November of 2018 and in December of 2018. ISO-NE addressed the error for the December of 2018 Load, however ISO-NE has refused to correct the billing error that was made for the November 2018 Load. Liberty has exhausted its administrative remedies to obtain relief from ISO-NE and therefore Liberty is filing this Complaint to obtain the amounts that it overpaid to ISO-NE for the November 2018 Load (the 'Disputed Amount'), based upon Eversource’s error."

The amount in dispute totals $191,440, Liberty alleged

Liberty alleged in the complaint that, "As documented this [sic] Complaint, the parties cannot dispute that: (1) Eversource erroneously claimed that Load from the Smith & Wesson account was the responsibility of Liberty, even though Eversource has acknowledged that it was actually responsible for such Load; (2) Liberty could not have reasonably known of the existence of the alleged error until Eversource brought its error to Liberty’s attention through an email received from Eversource on June 3, 2019; (3) ISO-NE corrected the erroneous billing for December 2018 Load; (4) on July 11, 2018, Liberty complied with Section 6 of the ISO-NE Billing Policy ('Policy'), by submitting an [sic] Request for Billing Adjustment ('RBA') for November 2018 Load that was incorrect assigned to Liberty, but for which Liberty was not responsible5; (5) ISO-NE responded to Liberty’s July 11, 2019 letter on November 12, 2019, and ISO-NE refused to correct the error for the November 2018 Load billing error because Liberty had failed to file an RBA concerning the error within three (3) months of the date that the Invoice or Remittance Advice containing the Disputed Amount was issued; (6) Section 6.3.1 of the ISO-NE Policy, however, provides, in part, that 'A Disputing Party must submit its Requested Billing Adjustment within three months of the date that the Invoice or Remittance Advice containing the Disputed Amount was issued by the ISO unless the Disputing Party could not have reasonably known of the existence of the alleged error within such time.' (Emphasis added [by Liberty]); and (7) Liberty notified ISO-NE of the billing error promptly after Liberty 'reasonably knew of the existence' of the error that Eversource and ISO-NE had made."

Liberty alleged in the complaint that, "Eversource provides a synchronization list every month to Liberty’s Billing department. This list contains a snap shot of all the accounts that Eversource shows to be flowing with Liberty that same month. Liberty’s Billing department then reconciles the utility’s synchronization list with its own internal account lists. Any discrepancies between the two lists are brought up to the utility. Significantly, the November 2018 list (received by Liberty on November 13, 2018 from Eversource) did not contain the Smith & Wesson account. Although the December 2018 list (which Liberty received on December 26, 2018) did contain the Smith & Wesson account, this was as expected by Liberty because Liberty’s records showed the Smith & Wesson account with an effective date of December 31, 2018. Eversource’s synchronization list did not specify an effective date for the subject account. As a result, Liberty reasonably believed by the end of December of 2018 that its records were in sync with Eversource with regard to the Smith & Wesson accounts. The subject issue was only discovered as a result of Eversource’s resettlement process, which is performed four (4) months in arrears. In March 2019, while reconciling November 2018, Eversource mistakenly had the Smith & Wesson account as part of Liberty’s portfolio for November and December of 2018. Eversource did not provide a resettlement synchronization list to Liberty at that time, so Liberty was still not aware of this Smith & Wesson Load issue."

Liberty alleged that, "granting this adjustment will not result in harm to any other party."

Liberty alleged that, "Unlike some potential adjustments, granting the requested adjustment to correct Liberty’s Load for November of 2018 will not result in harm to any other party. Such an adjustment would have already been made, if only Eversource had discovered its error regarding the Smith & Wesson load 30 days earlier. ISO-NE granted the RBA in response to Eversource’s request to correct its December 2018 billing error for the same Load that is the subject of the November 2018 billing error. It would be inequitable therefore to cause harm to Liberty by not making the adjustment to the November load given the explanation and documentation that is contained herein. In that instance, ISO-NE appropriately corrected the billing error that Eversource had made for the December 2018 Load by billing the proper party (Eversource) for the December 2018 Load and by providing Liberty with a refund for the amounts that it had been incorrectly billed for."

Docket EL20-27

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