Ownership of Smart Meter Texas To Remain With TDUs Under Stakeholder Settlement

Staff of the Public Utility Commission of Texas said that Staff, ERCOT, the Joint TDUs, the REP Coalition, and the Office of Public Utility Counsel (OPUC) have reached an agreement on the future of the Smart Meter Texas (SMT) portal

Specifically, the stakeholder consensus would:

1) Keep ownership of SMT with the Joint TDUs;

2) Open a rulemaking proceeding to address issues regarding governance, performance and funding of SMT; and

3) Explore an option whereby ERCOT would send the 15-minute interval consumption data that it uses for market settlement to the Joint TDU-owned SMT data repository in order to facilitate REP of record (ROR) billing processes.

Under the consensus, variances between SMT interval data and ERCOT interval data used for market settlement would be reduced; RORs and 3rd parties would continue to be able to access data in the format most useful to them; and the cost to the market would be less than transfer of the data repository to ERCOT, Staff said

"Staff is confident that issues surrounding governance, performance and funding of SMT can be addressed through a rulemaking proceeding. Staff also believes that populating the Joint TDU-owned SMT data repository with the data that ERCOT uses for purposes of market settlement would facilitate REP billing processes and could also be addressed through the rulemaking proceeding. However, if it becomes apparent by working with stakeholders that this issue cannot be reasonably addressed through the proceeding, staff proposes to advise the REP Coalition to resolve its billing issues with ERCOT through the ERCOT stakeholder process. In that instance, SMT would continue to receive consumption data directly from the TDUs," Staff said

"Staff believes that steps to reduce variances between the consumption data stored in the SMT data repository and the consumption data ERCOT uses for purposes of market settlement can be made without sacrificing the timeliness of data or incurring the increased cost that would result from a transfer of the SMT data repository to ERCOT. Staff's proposed option has an added benefit for RORs that choose to bill customers on their 15-minute interval data stored on SMT. Because ERCOT would send the consumption data to SMT, the RORs could bill customers on data that matches the consumption data ERCOT inputs into its market settlement process prior to adjustments such as those made to account for line loss and unaccounted for energy that are required for wholesale market settlement," Staff said

Currently, customer consumption data is validated, estimated and edited (VEE) by the TDUs and the same set of data is sent to both SMT and ERCOT. The consumption data sent to SMT for access by customers, RORs and authorized third parties and the consumption data sent to ERCOT for use in ERCOT's market settlement process is subject to certain file format validations.

However, the consumption data sent to SMT is not subject to the threshold value validation check or the data estimation routine that ERCOT employs for purposes of market settlement. Under the proposal agreed to by Staff and stakeholders, the TDUs would send consumption data to ERCOT alone. ERCOT would provide the Joint TDU-owned SMT data repository with: 1) consumption data as received from the Joint TDUs on the day following the operating day (OD+1); 2) consumption data that ERCOT uses for purposes of market settlement five days after the operating day (OD+5); and 3) periodic updates to the consumption data that would continue until the true-up of the settlement data. This option would reduce the risk of variance between the consumption data available for access on SMT and the consumption data used by ERCOT for market settlement, Staff said

"Because accurate and timely access to customer consumption data is critical to products and services offered by the market, another benefit of maintaining the SMT data repository in its current location is that customers and stakeholders would continue to have access to customer consumption data on the day following the operating day. According to the ERCOT settlement timeline provided to staff, it would take several days after the operating day for stakeholders to access the consumption data that ERCOT uses for purposes of market settlement in an option that would transfer the data repository to ERCOT," Staff said

Project 42786