Houston (Platts)--22Feb2013/328 pm EST/2028 GMT

Stakeholders in the Entergy footprint want more transparency in reports from the new independent coordinator of transmission, Entergy Regional State Committee members learned Friday.

The Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator became the ICT for the Entergy footprint in December.

During an ERSC meeting held in New Orleans and available by phone and online, a MISO representative reported that transmission service was curtailed for 1,110 hours in January, compared with 818 hours in December. Previous ICT metrics reports show transmission service had to be curtailed 1,184 hours in January 2012.

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Entergy curtailed 85.3 million MWh in January, compared with 5.1 million MWh in December and 66 million MWh in January 2012.

In explaining why the January curtailments were more than December, the representative said December was warmer than usual and January was cooler, and the Entergy system had an unexpected forced outage.

But that was not a sufficient explanation, said Jennifer Vosburg, president of NRG Energy's Louisiana Generating facility, who chairs the ICT Stakeholders Committee.

"Telling us it was cold in January is not a satisfactory answer," she said.

MISO took over the ICT function from Southwest Power Pool, which had included discussion of which transmission constraints contributed to curtailments.

"It's not just about the numbers, it's about the analysis and how do we fix it," she said.

Brandon Presley, a Mississippi Public Service Commission member and ERSC vice president, agreed that such details were useful. Presley chaired Friday's meeting in the absence of ERSC President Ken Anderson, a Public Utility Commission of Texas member.

Regulatory bodies from Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Orleans and Texas comprise the ERSC, because each of those states oversees Entergy operating companies.

The MISO speaker said the ICT would include such information in future reports.

A presentation by Robert Sinclair, of Potomac Economics, which serves as the ICT independent market monitor, showed that Entergy acquired generation capacity through the weekly procurement process in only two of the five weeks ending February 16.

During the other three weeks, Entergy did not acquire capacity because a "hold harmless" provision under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission-ordered ICT arrangement states that the New Orleans-based investor-owned utility need not acquire power when Entergy's legacy generation is expected to be less expensive than WPP procurements, Sinclair said.

But out of the 11 weeks during which MISO has been ICT, the WPP suppliers' costs would have been less than the Entergy cost in three of the four times the hold harmless provision was invoked. Potomac Economics is "evaluating the underlying conditions that may explain the hold harmless instances," Sinclair said.

Entergy has petitioned state and federal regulators to join MISO and to sell off its transmission grid to a new entity owned by ITC Holdings, of which Entergy shareholders would own 50.1%.

The ERSC learned that local balancing authorities, which are entities responsible for regulating the grid at 60 hertz, are to submit by March 1 their network models to MISO, which will serve as the Entergy footprint's central balancing authority. Also, MISO is conducting new member outreach and market training.

--Mark Watson, markham_watson@platts.com
--Edited by Lisa Miller, lisa_miller@platts.com

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