Orders

ORDER NUMBER

R-12-24

 

IN THE MATTER OF

the Utilities Commission Act, RSBC 1996, Chapter 473

 

and

 

Rio Tinto Alcan

Application for Acceptance of a Mitigation Plan required for

Compliance with Mandatory Reliability Standard:

FAC-003-4 Requirement 3 – Violation ID: BCUC2022000775

 

BEFORE:

E. B. Lockhart, Panel Chair

E. A. Brown, Commissioner

 

on March 27, 2024

 

ORDER

WHEREAS:

 

A.      On July 26, 2023, the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), acting as the Administrator for the British Columbia Mandatory Reliability Standards Program (BC MRS Program), issued a Recommendation of Mitigation Plan (MP) Acceptance (Recommendation) to bring Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) into compliance with the Reliability Standard identified above;

B.      Section 125.2 of the Utilities Commission Act (UCA) assigns exclusive jurisdiction to the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) to determine whether a “reliability standard,” as defined in the UCA, is in the public interest and should be adopted in British Columbia;

C.      By Order G-123-09 dated October 15, 2009, the BCUC appointed WECC as its Administrator for registration of entities and monitoring compliance pursuant to section 8 of the UCA. WECC’s role as Administrator for the BC MRS Program is pursuant to the Administration Agreement between WECC and the BCUC dated October 8, 2009, and most recently renewed on July 5, 2019;

D.      Order G-123-09 also approved the Compliance Monitoring Program (CMP) for monitoring and enforcement of adopted reliability standards and the most recent revisions to the CMP were approved by Order R-40-17 dated September 1, 2017;

E.       Pursuant to section 5.1.1 of the CMP, an entity subject to approved Mandatory Reliability Standards found in Confirmed Violation of a reliability standard must prepare a MP to correct the Confirmed Violation or prepare a description of how the Confirmed Violation has been mitigated. Pursuant to section 5.3.2 of the CMP, an MP with respect to a Confirmed Violation must be submitted to the Administrator within ten days following confirmation by the BCUC;

F.       On July 26, 2023, RTA submitted the MP to address the violation of FAC-003-4 R3 with the proposed completion date of December 31, 2023, as shown below;

 

G.      On January 26, 2024, RTA submitted its Attestation of Mitigation Plan Completion to WECC, which is subject to separate review; and

H.      The BCUC has reviewed WECC’s Recommendation and considers that acceptance of the MP for FAC-003-4 R3 is warranted.

 

NOW THEREFORE pursuant to section 125.2(10) of the UCA and in accordance with the CMP, the BCUC accepts the MP with the proposed completion date as identified in recital F above.

 

DATED at the City of Vancouver, in the Province of British Columbia, this               27^th               day of March 2024.

 

BY ORDER

 

Original signed by:

 

E. B. Lockhart

Commissioner