Retail Suppliers, Customers Seek Technical Conference on "Substantial New Burden" Sought By FERC

A diverse group of entities, including retail suppliers, generators, and end users, pressed FERC to hold a technical conference on new reporting rules to be imposed on all RTO market participants that, "impose a substantial new reporting burden," on such participants

As previously reported, FERC is proposing to launch a dragnet over the organized market by requiring all market participants to report information on all of their "connected entities" -- a term broader than the current definition of affiliate. Click here for prior story to see definition of connected entity

A group including the Retail Energy Supply Association, EPSA, and ELCON noted that this would include, "a large number of entities that do not participate in FERC-jurisdictional wholesale electricity markets and that are not otherwise subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction."

"The obligations as affiliates or Connected Entities to the various ISOs/RTOs, to the Commission, and to their now 'connected' RTO market participants are unclear and may involve additional and extensive resources, duplicative or overlapping reporting mechanisms, resolution or coordination with processes in place for other governmental or regulatory agencies, and compliance oversight which could implicate entities with whom no control or operational relationship currently exists with an ISO/RTO market participant," the groups said.

"[I]information related to those [connected] entities must be reported in detail by ISO/RTO market participants, including change of status notifications on very short timeframes," the groups noted.

Docket No. RM15-23