UCA seeks role in TransAlta hearing
Restitution sought for customers affected by market manipulation
Alberta’s Utilities Consumer Advocate has requested intervener status in an upcoming TransAlta penalty hearing to seek restitution for the high power prices that Albertans had to pay as a result of the manipulation of the electricity market.
The Utilities Consumer Advocate, a branch of the provincial Service Alberta ministry, says the Alberta Utilities Commission has been granted “broad powers” to craft appropriate remedies for misconduct “which can and ought to include a mechanism to provide restitution to aggrieved customers.”
“One of the UCA’s key objectives in seeking to participate in this proceeding is to advocate for an appropriate remedy for the misconduct, including restitution on behalf of aggrieved customers and an administrative penalty commensurate with the harm to the market,” the advocate says in a 10- page submission to the AUC.
The commission ruled in late July that the Calgary- based utility manipulated the market and engaged in insider trading when it shut down its coal- fired power plants on four occasions during peak demand periods during the winter of 2010- 11.
A penalty hearing is expected to begin this fall to determine how much Alberta’s largest utility must pay for its breach of the rules in Canada’s only fully deregulated power market.
The commission can fine TransAlta up to $ 1 million a day for every day the violations occurred and require it to relinquish the profits it made as a result of the contravention of the rules. It can also require the utility to pay the cost of the investigation and hearing.
TransAlta declined to comment on the UCA submission.
The advocate, Chris Hunt, was unavailable for comment.
“We are waiting to find out if the Utilities Consumer Advocate will be granted standing in the next phase of the hearings and look forward to hearing the outcome,” said Service Alberta spokeswoman Shannon Greer.
The UCA was denied intervener status in the hearing that found TransAlta breached the market rules. The Utilities Consumer Advocate says it is critical that it be allowed to participate in the penalty phase because consumers will be directly affected by the outcome.
The UCA says banning it from the penalty phase “may give the perception that the proceeding is not in fact open.”
Granting of intervener status to the UCA ... will ensure consumers’ viewpoints and interests are adequately taken into account.
It noted the Alberta’s Consumers Coalition will not be seeking intervener status and supports the UCA submission.
“Consumers represented by the UCA have suffered losses as a result of TransAlta’s conduct,” the advocate says.
“The granting of intervener status to the UCA in the penalty phase of the proceeding will ensure that consumers’ viewpoints and interests are adequately taken into account when the commission exercises its discretion in determining the appropriate remedy as a result of TransAlta’s misconduct.”
AUC spokesman Jim Law said the commission will rule on the UCA application for intervener status in the near future.
He said all parties involved in the case met Monday to discuss the timing and scope of the penalty phase.
“Both TransAlta and the Market Surveillance Administrator ( MSA) agreed that an oral component of the penalty phase beginning in very late November would be acceptable,” he said in an email.
“The commission will now issue a decision quite soon that sets out the timing ( and) schedule for the penalty phase and confirm who will participate.”