65- 407 C.M.R. ch. 307, § 7
Any person, including an affiliated competitive provider of a utility subject to this Chapter, may bid. Bids for the first sale period shall be filed not later than noon on October 1, 1999. Bids for subsequent sale periods shall be filed not later than noon on the date established in the request for bids. Bids shall be sealed and shall comply with all requirements of the request for bids approved by the Commission, including the provision of all required pricing and other information. There shall be a single round of bids for each sale period. A bid that does not comply with any material requirement of the request for bids is disqualified, subject to review by the Commission of the utility's decision that the requirement was material and that the bidder did not comply with the requirement. Within 7 days of being notified of a disqualification, the Commission will complete its review or notify the utility that it requires additional time for review.
Utilities subject to this Chapter and affiliated competitive providers (as defined in 35-A M.R.S.A. §3205(1)(A) ) of those utilities shall comply with the standards of conduct contained in 35-A M.R.S.A. §3205(3) and Chapter 304 of the Commission's rules.
Prior to executing a contract with a winning bidder, the utility shall determine whether that bidder is financially qualified to meet the payment commitments of the contract for sale.
On or before November 1, 1999 for the first round of bids, and on dates thereafter as ordered by the Commission for subsequent rounds, utilities subject to this Chapter shall select the winning bidder(s) based on the highest price or combination of prices presented by financially qualified bidders. To determine the highest bid(s), a utility shall calculate the net present value of each bid. To determine net present values, a utility shall multiply each monthly bid price (including time-of-day prices) by the quantities (in kW and kWh) of capacity and energy provided to the utility in the applicable pricing category during the same month of the recent annual period identified in the information provided with the request for bids pursuant to Section 6(B)(2)(e), discounted by the utility's overall before-tax cost of capital as last found by the Commission. If, in the opinion of the utility, one or more months in a recent test period do not reasonably represent the output it expects to receive during the sale period, the utility may use an average of data from the same month of other recent test periods. The utility shall provide notice of its intent to use alternative data in the information provided with the request for bids pursuant to Section 6(B)(2)(e). Utilities shall not execute contracts with the winning bidder(s) until directed to do so by the Commission pursuant to section 7(I).
The effective date for the first sale period shall be March 1, 2000 and the sale of capacity and energy shall be for a 2-year period. For subsequent sale periods, the effective date for a sale shall be the day following the expiration of the preceding sale period.
By order issued not less than 4 months prior to the date for issuance of each request for bids, the Commission shall establish the duration of the period for the next sale of capacity and energy.
Utilities subject to this Chapter shall conduct all bidding processes, including determining the financial qualifications of and selecting the highest bidder, in a manner that does not discriminate among bidders and that is consistent with the purposes of maximizing the sale price of the capacity and energy sold pursuant to this Chapter and of minimizing stranded costs.
If the Commission conducts a proceeding addressing the issue of market concentration or market power, and finds that no single purchaser should be allowed to purchase all of the capacity and energy from contracts with qualifying facilities and other renewable resources as described in section 6(A)(1), the Commission shall issue an order in that proceeding limiting the percentage of capacity and energy from qualifying facilities and other renewable resources that any single bidder may purchase pursuant to this Chapter. If the Commission in that proceeding finds that a specific entity would obtain an unacceptable level of market concentration if it purchased more than a specified percentage of the capacity and energy from qualifying facilities and other renewable resources available under this Chapter, the Commission by order in that proceeding may limit the percentage of such capacity and energy the entity may purchase pursuant to this Chapter.
On or before November 1, 1999 for the first round of bids and on dates thereafter as ordered by the Commission, a utility subject to this Chapter shall notify the Commission of its determination of the winning bidder(s) made pursuant to section 7(D). At this time, the utility shall include the identities of the winning bidder(s), the bid price(s) and an explanation and documentation of the analyses it used to determine the winning bid(s), and a summary of the losing bids. Utilities shall inform the Commission of any grounds for which it believes the sale of capacity and energy to a winning bidder selected pursuant to section 7(D) would not be in the public interest.
On or before December 1, 1999 for the first round of bids, and on dates thereafter as ordered by the Commission for subsequent rounds, the Commission shall inform utilities whether contracts with winning bidder(s) should be executed. Upon a finding that stranded costs would not be reasonably mitigated by acceptance of a winning bid, the Commission may order the utility to reject a winning bid, and to either accept an alternative bid or sell the rights to the capacity and energy in the regional wholesale bulk power markets until the selection of a new purchaser.
The Commission shall use the bid price(s) of the winning bid(s) in calculating a utility's stranded costs for the applicable generation assets or generation-related business activities, unless it finds, in a proceeding that addresses stranded costs, that the utility, in its bidding process or selection, did not act prudently to maximize the sales price or to minimize stranded costs. In any such proceeding addressing stranded costs, the Commission may issue appropriate orders necessary to protect confidential information of bidders, including non-winning bidders.
65- 407 C.M.R. ch. 307, § 7