| (5) All official Protocol clarifications or interpretations
that ERCOT issues in response to a market participant's formal request
or upon ERCOT's own initiative must be sent out in a market bulletin
with the appropriate effective date specified to inform all market
participants, and a copy of the clarification or interpretation must
be maintained in a manner that is accessible to market participants.
Such response must not contain information that would identify the
requesting market participant.
(6) A market participant may freely communicate informally
with ERCOT employees, however, the opinion of an individual ERCOT
staff member not issued as an official interpretation of ERCOT pursuant
to this subsection may not be relied upon as an affirmative defense
by a market participant.
(j) Role of ERCOT in enforcing operating standards.
ERCOT must monitor material occurrences of non-compliance with ERCOT
procedures, which means occurrences that have the potential to impede
ERCOT operations or represent a risk to system reliability. Non-compliance
indicators monitored by ERCOT must include, but are not limited to,
material occurrences of failing resource performance measures as established
by ERCOT, failure to follow dispatch instructions within the required
time, failure to meet ancillary services obligations, failure to submit
mandatory bids or offers, and other instances of non-compliance of
a similar magnitude.
(1) ERCOT must keep a record of all such material occurrences
of non-compliance with ERCOT procedures and must develop a system
for tracking recurrence of such material occurrences of non-compliance.
(2) ERCOT must promptly provide information to and
respond to questions from market participants to allow the market
participant to understand and respond to alleged material occurrences
of non-compliance with ERCOT procedures. However, this requirement
does not relieve the market participant's operator from responding
to the ERCOT operator's instruction in a timely manner and shall not
be interpreted as allowing the market participant's operator to argue
with the ERCOT operator as to the need for compliance.
(3) ERCOT must keep a record of the resolution of such
material occurrences of non-compliance and of remedial actions taken
by the market participant in each instance.
(4) ERCOT must promptly provide information to and
respond to questions posed by the Reliability Monitor and the commission.
(5) ERCOT must provide to the Reliability Monitor and
the commission the support and cooperation the commission determines
is necessary for the Reliability Monitor and the commission to perform
their functions.
(6) If directed by the commission, ERCOT must assume
all or part of the duties and responsibilities of the Reliability
Monitor under subsection (k) of this section. ERCOT must assume these
duties and responsibilities, including establishing appropriate safeguards
to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure the independence and objectivity
of ERCOT personnel with respect to the duties and responsibilities
assumed, in the manner prescribed by the commission.
(k) Responsibilities of the Reliability Monitor. The
Reliability Monitor must gather and analyze information and data as
needed for its reliability monitoring activities. The Reliability
Monitor works under the direction and supervision of the commission.
The Reliability Monitor must protect confidential information and
data in accordance with the confidentiality standards established
in PURA, the ERCOT protocols, commission rules, and other applicable
laws. The requirements related to the level of protection to be afforded
information protected by these laws and rules are incorporated into
this section. The duties and responsibilities of the Reliability Monitor
may include, but are not limited to:
(1) Monitoring, investigating, auditing, and reporting
to the commission regarding compliance with reliability-related ERCOT
procedures, including Protocols, Operating Guides, and Other Binding
Documents, the reliability-related provisions of the commission's
rules, and reliability-related provisions of PURA by market entities;
(2) Providing reliability-related subject-matter advice,
expertise, and assistance to the commission in the conduct of the
commission's oversight and enforcement activities; and
(3) Providing expert advice, analysis, reports, and
testimony services relating to the Reliability Monitor's analysis
and findings as part of the commission staff's case in enforcement
proceedings.
(l) Selection of the Reliability Monitor. The commission
may select an entity to act as the Reliability Monitor. If the commission
selects an entity other than ERCOT to act as the Reliability Monitor,
the Reliability Monitor must be independent from ERCOT and is not
subject to the supervision of ERCOT with respect to its monitoring
and investigative activities. If the commission selects an entity
other than ERCOT to act as the Reliability Monitor, the commission
and ERCOT will enter into a contract with the selected entity. In
selecting the Reliability Monitor, the commission must consider whether
the Reliability Monitor satisfies the following criteria:
(1) Independence, objectivity, and the absence of potential
conflicts of interest;
(2) Experience performing compliance monitoring of
reliability-related laws;
(3) Familiarity with the ERCOT Region and understanding
of reliability-related ERCOT protocols, procedures, and other operating
standards;
(4) Ability to manage confidential information appropriately;
and
(5) Cost effectiveness.
(m) Funding of the Reliability Monitor. ERCOT must
fund the operations of the Reliability Monitor from the fee authorized
by PURA §39.151.
(n) Standards for record keeping.
(1) A market participant who schedules through a qualified
scheduling entity (QSE) that submits schedules to ERCOT on behalf
of more than one market participants must maintain records to show
scheduling, offer, and bidding information for all schedules, offers,
and bids that its QSE has submitted to ERCOT on its behalf, by interval.
(2) All market participants and ERCOT must maintain
records relative to market participants' activities in the ERCOT-administered
markets to show:
(A) information on transactions, as defined in §25.93(c)(3)
of this title (relating to Quarterly Wholesale Electricity Transaction
Reports), including the date, type of transaction, amount of transaction,
and entities involved;
(B) information and documentation of all planned, maintenance,
and forced generation and transmission outages including all documentation
necessary to document the reason for the outage;
(C) information described under this subsection including
transaction information, information on pricing, settlement information,
and other information that would be relevant to an investigation under
this section, and that has been disclosed to market publications and
publishers of surveys and price indices, including the date, information
disclosed, and the name of the employees involved in providing the
information as well as the publisher to whom it was provided; and
(D) reports of the market participant's financial information
given to external parties, including the date, financial results reported,
and the party to whom financial information was reported, if applicable.
(3) After the effective date of this section, all records
referred to in this subsection except verbal dispatch instructions
(VDIs) must be kept for a minimum of three years from the date of
the event. ERCOT must keep VDI records for a minimum of two years.
All records must be made available to the commission for inspection
upon request.
(4) A market participant must, upon request from the
commission, provide the information referred to in this subsection
to the commission, and may, if applicable, provide it under a confidentiality
agreement or protective order pursuant to §22.71(d) of this title
(relating to Filing of Pleadings, Documents, and Other Material).
(o) Investigation. The commission staff may initiate
an informal fact-finding review based on a complaint or upon its own
initiative to obtain information regarding facts, conditions, practices,
or matters that it may find necessary or proper to ascertain in order
to evaluate whether any market entity has violated any provision of
this section.
(1) The commission staff will contact the market entity
whose activities are in question to provide the market entity an opportunity
to explain its activities. The commission staff may require the market
entity to provide information reasonably necessary for the purposes
described in this subsection.
(2) If the market entity asserts that the information
requested by commission staff is confidential, the information must
be provided to commission staff as confidential information related
to settlement negotiations or other asserted bases for confidentiality
pursuant to §22.71(d)(4) of this title.
Cont'd... |
