A number of North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) Mandatory Reliability Standards require a GO to convey critical status information and “changes to capabilities and characteristics” directly to its Balancing Authority (the CAISO), Transmission Operator (TOP) and Reliability Coordinator (the CMRC) without any intentional time delay. However, generators currently send all required information to their Scheduling Coordinators (SCs) (i.e., PG&E, SCE and SDG&E) and these entities aggregate the information and subsequently submit it to the CAISO and California/Mexico Reliability Coordinator (CMRC).
The NERC and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) compliance audit requirements require a reasonable audit trail attesting that the Reliability Standards are being met. Therefore, the CAISO will hold two stakeholder meeting/workshops to ensure that, for the purposes of NERC/WECC desktop audits, GOs are able to provide documentation that the aggregated information submitted to their responsible SCs has been appropriately submitted to CAISO. In order for the entities to be able to account for the submission of this information, the communication documentation should be established and published.
Therefore, the CAISO will hold a workshop to facilitate agreements between GOs and TOPs. Such agreements will formally establish standardized communication protocols that can be published and used for potential NERC/WECC audits.
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