Ironwood Windpower, LLC (IW) Recieved a Penalty of $20,000 in Violation of SERC’s Regulation Mod-032-1 R2

Summary:

Ironwood Windpower, LLC (IW) notified SERC pursuant to an existing multi-region registered entity agreement that it was in violation of MOD-032-1 R2. IW failed to provide modeling data to its Transmission Planner (TP) and Planning Coordinator (PC) according to the data requirements and reporting procedures developed by its TP and PC in Requirement R1. On October 6, 2022, while gathering historical MOD-032 compliance evidence for an upcoming audit, Duke Energy Renewable Services (DERS) NERC Compliance discovered IW did not submit the steady-state, dynamics, or short circuit modeling data to its TP and PC, as required. Specifically, the PC requires IW to submit the data by a particular date each year, and the TP requires IW to follow the PC’s process. IW did not submit the required modeling data to the PC or TP by the July 1, 2016, effective date of the standard, nor did it submit the modeling data for the 2017, 2018, 2019, or 2021 calendar years. IW submitted the modeling data for 2020 on March 12, 2020, and for 2022 on March 10, 2022, and September 19, 2022, as required. For the extent-of-condition (EOC) assessment, DERS reviewed MOD-032 R2 submission data across the Multi-Region Registered Entity (MRRE) Group 15b DERS fleet and for applicable sites within the Duke Energy Enterprise Transmission, Regulated Renewable Energy, and Nuclear business areas. This review included data beginning in 2016, when the standard became mandatory and applicable. The EOC identified additional noncompliances associated with the MRRE Group 15b DERS fleet, which were individually self-reported to SERC. No instances of noncompliance were identified with the other Duke Energy Enterprise business areas.

Additional Discussion:

Cause

The cause of this noncompliance was an inadequate fleet-wide compliance management approach to MOD-032. Personnel responsible for the oversight of compliance activities lacked training and awareness on MOD-032, which resulted in deficient procedures, a lack of controls, and inadequate compliance training across multiple Generator Owners. The roles and responsibilities were not clearly defined for all groups involved in producing and submitting MOD-032 modeling data, and there was not a written procedure for submitting data to its TP and PCs. Rather, compliance personnel relied upon email notifications from its TP and PC as submission reminders; however, when personnel turned over, replacements were not added to the TP and PC distribution list, and no notifications occurred to instruct new personnel to submit the modeling data.

This noncompliance started on July 1, 2016, when the standard became mandatory and enforceable and IW failed to submit the required modeling data to its PC and TP, and ended on September 19, 2022, when IW submitted all required model data to its TP and PC.

Disposition

The Regions considered IW and its affiliates’ compliance history and determined there were no relevant instances of noncompliance.

The Regions reviewed IW’s internal compliance program and considered it to be a neutral factor in the penalty determination due to a lack of annual reviews of the program and lack of training for mandatory compliance requirements.

IW did not receive mitigating credit for self-reporting because the self-report was submitted after receiving notice of an upcoming Compliance Audit. However, IW did receive mitigating credit for cooperation and agreeing to the settle.

Under coordinated oversight, the penalty will be divided among the Regional Entities as follows. The $20,000 shall be paid to SERC and SERC shall divide the penalty amount in three parts based on the relative Net Energy Load (NEL) for SERC, Midwest Reliability Organization (MRO), ReliabilityFirst (RF), and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). SERC will then distribute a NEL based proportional allocation to MRO, RF, and WECC.