IESO Weekly Bulletin

October 1, 2009

In this issue:
Corporate News
- Doug Thomas Appointed to IESO's Technical Panel

Market Rules and Market Design
- Interim Market Document Change on Outage Reporting Requirements

Market and System Operations
- Connecting FIT Projects to the Electricity Grid
- IESO Files Joint Response to FERC's order on NPCC's Proposed Definition of Bulk Electric System

Metering and Settlements
- Reliability Must-Run Contract Expired

Stakeholder Engagement
- Agenda for October 28 Advisory Committee Meeting Now Available
- Market Participants Invited to Attend NYISO Technical Conference on Loop Flows

Planned IT System Outages

Upcoming Events

Corporate News
Doug Thomas Appointed to IESO's Technical Panel

The IESO is pleased to announce that Doug Thomas has been appointed the new Chair of the IESO's Technical Panel. Through Mr. Thomas' leadership, strong facilitation skills and experience with the market, the Technical Panel will be well positioned in its stakeholdering efforts, providing recommendations to the Board of Directors on amendments to the Market Rules.

Mr. Thomas joined the IESO in 1998 and currently holds the position of Director, Settlements where he is responsible for management of the settlement and metering function within the IESO. Prior to his current role, he held the position of Director, Finance where he was responsible for all financial and treasury aspects of both the organization and the IESO-administered market. Prior to joining the IESO, he held a variety of financial management positions and obtained his Chartered Accountant designation while working for Ernst and Young LLP. Mr. Thomas holds a degree in Honours Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario.

The IESO would like to take this opportunity to thank Harry Chandler for his contributions to the Technical Panel over the years. The IESO wishes him all the best in his new role as President and CEO of the Market Surveillance Authority in Calgary, Alberta.

Market Rules and Market Design
Interim Market Document Change on Outage Reporting Requirements

The IESO has proposed an Interim Market Document Change (IMDC) to clarify reporting requirements for generating facility plant auxiliaries (common systems necessary for the operation of one or more generating units). Previously, market participants had to interpret requirements for reporting outages to power system auxiliaries and assess their application to generating facility plant auxiliaries. Additional changes are included in the IMDC to improve organization, clarification and consistency with other market documents.

The IMDC will take effect on October 1, 2009, and is scheduled to be valid until these changes are integrated into Market Manual 7.3 on December 9, 2009: www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/systemOps/so_OutageManagement.pdf.

Comments on these reporting requirements can be sent to pending.changes@ieso.ca by October 7, 2009.

Market and System Operations
Connecting FIT Projects to the Electricity Grid

The IESO has launched its Feed-in Tariff (FIT) web site to assist FIT applicants in understanding the process of connecting to Ontario's electricity grid: www.ieso.ca/fit.

With the launch of the FIT program on October 1, 2009, program applicants should be aware that they must have a FIT contract in place before they can apply for an impact assessment.

Projects that have already applied for an impact assessment and intend to apply for a FIT contract must rescind their original impact assessment or impact assessment application. To rescind your impact assessment, please submit a Notification of Withdrawal: www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/forms/IMO_Form_1073-WithdrawalNotification.doc.

IESO Files Joint Response to FERC's order on NPCC's Proposed Definition of Bulk Electric System

The IESO, along with the New Brunswick System Operator (NBSO) and Nova Scotia Power Incorporated (NSPI) have filed a joint response to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recommending that the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's (NERC) reliability standards be limited to facilities which have a wide-area reliability and not be expanded to include facilities which impact only local-area reliability.

This follows from a proposal by the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) that its members adopt a "bright-line" approach which would include a voltage threshold of 100 kV or greater. The Canadian entities party to the filing believe that this "bright-line" approach would result in NERC reliability standards being applied to all facilities 100 kV and above, many of which do not have a wide-area impact and do not cause cascading outages.

The joint filing is located at: www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/corp/IESO_NBSO_NSPI_FERC-Comments_NPCC_BES_20090922.pdf

The parties to the filing believe that the impact-based approach currently used by NPCC has been in existence for many years and has not resulted in technical seams issues with other neighbouring jurisdictions. The parties noted that NPCC's current impact based methodology effectively ensures that NERC reliability standards apply to all facilities which are critical to the reliability of the interconnected grid and thus, should be retained. They also feel that the adoption of a bright-line definition across NPCC members would impose significant additional costs on consumers with no measurable benefits to wide-area reliability.

NPCC is one of the eight regional entities under the oversight of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). In its role as a regional entity, NPCC has compliance and enforcement authority for NERC reliability standards for certain U.S. and Canadian entities including those in Ontario. Other Canadian provinces within the NPCC region include Quebec, New Brunswick, and the Maritimes.

Metering and Settlements
Reliability Must-Run Contract Expired

The IESO will not be renewing a reliability must-run (RMR) contract that expired on September 30, 2009. Accordingly, the settlement of this contract and related charges to the loads in the market will discontinue. The October 31, 2009, preliminary settlement statement will contain the final settlement (charge type 550) for this contract.

RMR contracts obligate market participant to offer into the IESO-administered markets the maximum amount of energy and operating reserve in a commercially reasonable manner and in accordance with stated performance standards. More information is available in Chapter 7, section 9.8.1 of the IESO's Market Rules: www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketRules/mr_chapter7.pdf.

Stakeholder Engagement
Agenda for October 28 Advisory Committee Meeting Now Available

The agenda for the next Stakeholder Advisory Committee meeting on October 28 is now available on the IESO web site at: www.ieso.ca/imoweb/consult/stakeholder_ac_meetings.asp. The planned meeting dates for 2010 are also now available on this page.

Among other issues, members will be providing input on:

- The Maximum Adjustment Period for settlement statements
- Alternative Technologies Program and an Automatic Generation Control (AGC) pilot
- FERC order directing NYISO to develop solutions to loop flow

To register for this meeting, please send an email to stakeholder.engagement@ieso.ca. Please indicate if you are unable to attend but would be interested in participating through a teleconferencing service.

Stakeholders are also reminded of the October 16 deadline for nominations on the Stakeholder Advisory Committee. For details, please see: www.ieso.ca/imoweb/news/newsItem.asp?newsItemID=4876.

Market Participants Invited to Attend NYISO Technical Conference on Loop Flows

IESO market participants are invited to attend a multi-jurisdictional stakeholder technical conference addressing solutions to loop flows on October 29, 2009 in Albany, NY. This conference is in response to a July 16, 2009, FERC order directing NYISO to develop long-term solutions to loop flow problems with its neighbouring jurisdictions impacted by Lake Erie circulation (NYISO, IESO, MISO and PJM). The conference will discuss proposals on congestion management protocols and summarize activities in preparation for NYISO's January 12th, 2010, FERC Report.

Details regarding NYISO's proposed concepts, as well as a schedule for the development of these proposals, are outlined in the linked document: www.nyiso.com/public/webdocs/committees/bic/meeting_materials/2009-09-09/Agenda_10_Market_Solutions_Loop_Flow.pdf

Conference and registration details are available on the NYISO website at:
www.nyiso.com/public/committees/calendar/index.jsp

Due to the timing of this conference, the IESO is proposing that it change its next Inter-jurisdictional Traders Standing Committee meeting from October 29 to November 10. For questions or concerns, please contact stakeholder.engagement@ieso.ca.

Planned IT System Outages

Planned IT outages for the next week currently include a half hour outage to Message Exchange for automated dispatch instructions on October 7.

The IESO's Planned IT System Outages web page provides an easy way to view all planned outages: www.ieso.ca/it.outages. The page is updated frequently and planned outages are posted as soon as they are finalized.

Upcoming Events

October 1 - Reliability Standards Standing Committee Meeting
October 8 - Revenue Metering Standing Committee Meeting
October 28 - Advisory Committee Meeting
October 29 - NYISO Technical Conference on Loop Flows

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