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Commission approves electric utility business standards

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today finalized the first set of standards governing business practices and electronic communications for public utilities, which were developed through consensus by the Wholesale Electric Quadrant (WEQ) of the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB).

The business standards developed by NAESB include Open Access Same Time Information System (OASIS) Business Practice Standards, OASIS Standards and Communications Protocols, and OASIS Data Dictionary. These standards replace the Commission's existing business practice standards for OASIS transactions and OASIS Standards and Communication Protocols and Data Dictionary requirements.

The Commission also incorporated standards to address the redirect of transmission service, multiple submissions of identical transmission requests/queuing issues, OASIS posting requirements under the Commission's Large Generator Interconnection Rule (Order No. 2003), and maintenance of the OASIS standards.

Further, the Commission incorporated by reference WEQ business practice standards designed to complement the North American Electric Reliability Council's Version 0 Reliability Standards, including Coordinate Interchange, Area Control Error (ACE) Equation Special Cases, Manual Time Error Correction and Inadvertent Interchange Payback.

The Commission understands that "different regions may conduct business differently and regional variations may be needed." While the Commission prefers requests for regional differences and generic variations to be raised with the WEQ, the Commission will grant waivers and variances of certain WEQ standards in appropriate circumstances.

Each public utility will be required to follow the standards as of July 1, 2006. Each utility will be required to include the applicable WEQ standards in its open access transmission tariff, but may defer doing so until it otherwise makes a tariff application. For standards that do not require implementing tariff revisions, the Commission will permit the utility to incorporate the WEQ standard by reference in its tariff.

Today's Final Rule takes effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.

R-06-25

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