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NAESB Boosts Competitive Market Business Practices with Filing of First Comprehensive Report to FERC by its Wholesale Electric Quadrant

Competitive power market supporters in North America took a major step toward institutionalizing business practice standards in mid-January when the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) made its initial filing on wholesale electric standards to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The submission marks NAESB’s first comprehensive report to FERC by its Wholesale Electric Quadrant, one of four in the organization (the other three are Retail Electric, Wholesale Gas and Retail Gas).

The filing discusses the business practice standards and communications protocols that have been approved by NAESB’s stakeholders. The filing includes standards relating to Open Access Same-Time Information Systems and business practices that correspond to the North American Electric Reliability Council’s “Version 0” reliability standards for coordinated interchange, area control error equation special cases, manual time error correction and inadvertent interchange payback. The third set of standards adopted by NAESB deal with business practices for standards of conduct, which are guided by FERC Order Nos. 2004-A and 2004-B.

“This filing is a landmark development for NAESB,” said NAESB Board Chairman and Director of Public Policy for American Electric Power Michael Desselle. “While NAESB and its predecessor, the Gas Industry Standards Board, have filed numerous natural gas standards at FERC over the years, this is the first time we have filed standards related to the wholesale electric industry.”

FERC will adhere to the same procedure with electric standards that is used for gas standards. The standards will be open to the public for comment as a notice of proposed rulemaking and, then, finalized in a FERC regulation.

The filing, FERC Docket No. RM05-5-000, can be downloaded at www.ferc.gov, and the entire 156-page report can be found at www.naesb.org. For more information, contact Mark Bennett at mbennett@epsa.org, or 202-349-0152.