NRG Energy, Inc. – operator of nine Connecticut power plants – says Berlin electric utility Connecticut Light & Power’s poor response to massive power outages in the past three months necessitate Connecticut to fully review the planned merger of utility parents Northeast Utilities and NStar.
NRG filed a petition with the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority in early December asking the agency to revisit its decision not to review the merger. PURA formally decided in June it had no authority to review the $4.7 billion merger between Hartford-based NU and Boston-based NStar, even though NU has two subsidiaries in Connecticut – CL&P and Berlin natural gas utility Yankee Gas.
PURA will issue its final ruling on the NRG petition by Jan. 18.
In its December filing, NRG claims CL&P’s poor response to widespread power outages following Tropical Storm Irene in August and the Oct. 29 snowstorm called for a further Connecticut review of the merger. A major factor in the poor response was the lack of mutual aid restoration crews from other utilities in the region, according to a Dec. 2 review of the snowstorm response; and a merger between NU and NStar will further erode the number of available mutual aid crews for such events, according to NRG.
The filing also claims NU has significant dealings in the performance of CL&P in Connecticut. NRG specifically cited this Hartford Business Journal article, where NU offered a $30 million fund paid by shareholders to help CL&P customers recover their snowstorm loses and called NU’s initial $10 million offer insufficient.
NRG’s filing was mostly procedural as the Virginia-based company originally was acting as an intervener in a similar case made by the Connecticut Official of Consumer Counsel in Connecticut Superior Court in New Britain, but the judge in that case said NRG needed to first exhaust its appeal process through PURA.
The NU/NStar merger, announced Oct. 16, 2010, and would create the largest New England utility parent company with 3.5 million customers and six electric and natural gas subsidiaries. The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities still needs to sign off on the merger, as does the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NU expects the merger to close in the first quarter 2012.
The New England Power Generators Association, of which NRG is a member, is intervening in the Massachusetts DPU hearings.
