Retail Supplier Requests Waiver of ISO Penalties for Untimely Submission of Meter Data

3 Phases Energy Services, LLC has requested at FERC a waiver of Section 37.11.1 of the California Independent System Operator tariff, which imposes financial penalties on scheduling coordinators that submit untimely meter data.

CAISO either has already or intends to subject 3 Phases to a $83,000 total penalty as the result of correcting meter data associated with load 3 Phases served in 2013 during March, April, May and June. For each of these four months, "3 Phases requests that the Commission waive these penalties, as they are the result of two unintentional errors and good cause exists for the waiver," 3 Phases said.

3 Phases said that:

"3 Phases experienced two meter data issues in the spring and summer of 2013. In the first case, a meter data management agent [in this case, PG&E] provided incorrect meter data for one customer meter on April 3, 2013 for the meter cycle covering the month of March 2013, or more specifically February 28, 2013 through April 1, 2013. On May 22, 2013, the MDMA notified 3 Phases of this error and a week later they provided corrected settlement data. On the same day 3 Phases was notified of the error, 3 Phases submitted corrected settlement data in the CAISO market for March 15 through April 1, 2013. 3 Phases was not able at that time to submit corrected settlement data for the period from February 28 through March 14, 2013 due to the CAISO tariff limitation on correcting Settlement Quality Meter data more than 48 business days after the trading day. 3 Phases was not able to revise the CAISO settlement data for the period from February 28, 2013 through March 14, 2013 until approximately eight months after the trading day had passed, as required by the CAISO Tariff."

"In the second case, the submission of incorrect meter data was the result of a different customer’s malfunctioning meter. From March 2013 through August 2013, a meter measuring the load of one of 3 Phases’ retail customers was 'running fast,' meaning it was producing higher readings than the customer’s actual usage. This resulted in readings for those months that were 100 to 200 MWh higher per month than the customer’s actual usage. 3 Phases was first made aware of the malfunctioning meter on August 19, 2013, when the customer notified 3 Phases that the customer had received higher than expected bills. 3 Phases also learned at this time that the MDMA’s technicians had checked the meter and confirmed that the customer’s meter had been running faster than actual load. 3 Phases received the corrected meter data from the MDMA for March through July 2013 on September 4, 2013 and for August 2013 on September 5, 2013," 3 Phases said.

"For both the circumstances that resulted in 3 Phases submitting corrected meter data outside the 48 day window, the underlying cause of the errors was unintentional and 3 Phases has acted in good faith to correct the settlement data in as timely a manner as possible ... There is no action that 3 Phases could have taken in either of these circumstances to more timely submit corrected data and thereby avoid the penalties. 3 Phases must rely on its MDMA in the meter reading and billing process to obtain accurate information, and, as in this case, it is outside of 3 Phases control whether or not revised data is received within the CAISO Tariff’s 48 day timeframe for revising the Settlement Quality Meter Data (SQMD) without penalty," 3 Phases said.

3 Phases said that it serves less than 1,000 retail electric customers, and provides these customers electricity in the approximate range of 100,000 to 300,000 MWh annually.

"[An] adverse consequence of the sanction is that it presents a significant penalty for an ESP of 3 Phases’ size. While a $1,000/day sanction may be a manageable cost for a large incumbent utility or other retail electric company, it is a serious penalty for a smaller ESP, especially where the cause of the errors are unpreventable and unintentional," 3 Phases said.