FERC Approves Settlement in 2011 Southwest Blackout Case

FERC announced the approval of a stipulation and consent agreement between the FERC Office of Enforcement and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation ("NERC") with the Imperial Irrigation District ("IID").

The agreement is the second settlement resulting from the FERC-NERC joint investigation into the 2011 power outage that left five million people in Southern California, Arizona, Baja California and Mexico without power for up to 12 hours. According to the agreement, IID violated 10 requirements of four Reliability Standards on transmission operations and planning.

The consent agreement includes a $12 million civil penalty, $9 million of which will be invested in reliability enhancement measures, while the remaining $3 will be split evenly between the U.S. Treasury Department and FERC.

See: Press Release; Stipulation and Consent Agreement.