| (a) Applicability. This section applies to transmission service
provider (TSP), as defined in §25.5 (relating to Definitions), that:
(1) is not required by the Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA) §39.051
to unbundle generation and transmission activities; and
(2) has retail sales of total metered electric energy for the
average of the three most recent calendar years that is greater than 6,000,000
megawatt hours.
(b) Standards of conduct. Each TSP subject to this section
shall comply with the following standards:
(1) The employees of a TSP who are engaged in wholesale merchant
functions (that is, the purchase or sale of electric energy at wholesale),
other than purchases required under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies
Act, shall not:
(A) conduct transmission system operations or reliability functions;
(B) have preferential access to the TSP's system control center
and other facilities, beyond the access that is available to other market
participants; or
(C) have preferential access to information about the TSP's
transmission system that is not available to users of the electronic information
network established in accordance with Division 1 of this subchapter.
(2) To the maximum extent practicable, employees of a TSP engaged
in transmission system operations must function independently of employees
engaged in wholesale merchant functions of the TSP. Employees engaged in transmission
system operations may disclose information to employees of the TSP, or of
an affiliate, who are engaged in wholesale merchant functions only through
the electronic information network, if the information relates to the TSP's
transmission system or offerings of ancillary services, including calculations
of available transmission capacity and information concerning curtailments.
Employees engaged in transmission system operations may not disclose to employees
of the TSP, or of an affiliate, who are engaged in wholesale merchant functions,
any information that is not publicly available concerning activities of any
competitors of the TSP or any of its affiliates including requests for interconnection
by a transmission service customer or requests by the Electric Reliability
Council of Texas (ERCOT) for comments on the scope of a system security screening
study.
(3) Information concerning transfers of persons between an
organizational unit that is responsible for transmission system operations
and a unit that is responsible for wholesale merchant functions shall be provided
to the commission on a monthly basis and shall be made available, on request,
to any market participant.
(4) If an employee of a TSP discloses or obtains information
in a manner that is inconsistent with the requirements in this subsection,
the TSP shall post a notice and details of the disclosure on the information
network.
(5) Employees of a TSP engaged in transmission operations shall
apply the rules in Division 1 of this subchapter and any tariffs relating
to transmission service in a fair and impartial manner.
(6) Provisions of this section that allow no discretion shall
be strictly applied, and where discretion is allowed, it shall be exercised
in a non-discriminatory manner.
(7) This subsection shall not apply to data that do not relate
to transmission service operations such as information on human resource policies.
|
