FERC Filings
COMMENTS OF THE ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY ASSOCIATION ON REVISED PUBLIC UTILITY FILING REQUIREMENTS
BODY
EPSA appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Order and shares the Commission’s goal of developing efficient and effective reporting requirements that satisfy the Commission’s obligations under Section 205 of the Federal Power Act. However, as stated in the comments on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) in this docket that we filed on October 5, 2001, EPSA still has serious concerns that the Commission’s proposed reporting requirements could hinder the development and functioning of competitive markets. Furthermore, EPSA believes that the information the Commission is proposing to request would be of only nominal value for market monitoring purposes. At the very least, EPSA believes that the information the Commission is proposing to request should be kept confidential and, if necessary, released only in an aggregated form with a delay.
EPSA’s concerns relate to several specific data sets that the Commission is proposing be reported, which are listed below (as they appear under “Field Name” in the Order). EPSA urges the Commission to eliminate these specific data sets from its proposed filing requirements.
Rate
Rate_min
Rate_max
Rate_desc
Units
Product_ name
Product_sub_type_name
Total_transaction_charge
contract_execution_dt
contract_commencement_dt
contract_termination_dt
class_name
begin_date
end_date
quantity
The above data sets are the most confidential and commercially important components of an electric power supply contract. The public dissemination of this information will serve to stifle the initiation and continuing viability of new market entrants, particularly in areas where retail deregulation is newly implemented. This outcome could undermine the Commission’s support of policies that encourage and foster the greatest number of competitive suppliers. In this regard, incumbent utilities already have advantages of size, resources and assets, which could easily create barriers to entry. Forcing competitive power suppliers to publicly reveal the information identified above will
create additional obstacles for marketers to overcome in their effort to participate in open, competitive markets. These data sets could result in competitive disadvantages leading to the denial of entry into an emerging market and/or burdens making it impossible to remain in the market as the proprietary aspects of individual bilateral supply contracts are made known to competitors. While ostensibly well-intentioned, collection of the information required in these data sets would be counterproductive: the elimination of potential competitors would serve to limit consumer supply alternatives and consequently reduce the liquidity and vibrancy of the very wholesale and retail electric markets that the Commission is attempting to foster.
Additionally, the public disclosure of the information captured by the identified data sets will make apparent not only the fundamental terms of power supply contracts, but also the individual components of such agreements that make them unique. Contractual ingenuity is one of the most competitively sensitive aspects of a bilateral arrangement and may be the only competitive advantage that a particular power marketer may have. If this type of contract information is made public through the Commission’s proposed information reporting requirements, competitors effectively would have the ability to appropriate the intellectual property of others. Alternatively, the decision to make any of this information public usually resides with the contracting parties, and should not be mandated by the Commission in this rulemaking. We urge the Commission to achieve a better balance between the abstract notion of public disclosure and the need to preserve and protect incentives for innovation.
Finally, identifying the delivery points reveals the underlying end-use customers, which effectively provides potential competitors with a shopping list from which to poach new customers. In many cases, this effectively negates the considerable market development efforts and associated costs that a power marketer has had to expend to develop a sustainable customer base. This allows less-sophisticated competitors to profit from the efforts of others without commensurate market development efforts and expenses of their own—yet another example of the substantial downside to the proposed data sets described above.