On May 4, 2010, the PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) filed a response with FERC regarding PJM’s amendments to the PJM Open Access Transmission Tariff (“OATT”).  PJM was responding to protests and defended releasing data on the region’s reliability pricing model (“RPM”) auction. 

On April 8, Constellation NewEnergy, Inc. and Constellation Power Source Generation, Inc. (“Constellation”) filed comments claiming that PJM violated the PJM OATT and Operating Agreement confidentiality provisions by posting unmasked or non-aggregated bid data.  Constellation also argued that PJM’s new policy of posting granular data allows competitors to gather confidential unit-specifc data in certain PJM areas.  The independent market monitor, Monitoring Analytics, LLC, made similar accusations against PJM. 

Constellation owns a utility and a large portion of generation in PJM’s Southwest MAAC Locational Deliverability Area (“SWMAAC LDA”).  Constellation stated that there were several instances when its units did not aggregate price and quantity pairs with that of other market participants in the SWMAAC LDA.   Based on the generation output, Constellation argued that a competitor could deduce Constellation’s unit-specific offers into the auction from PJM’s data release, making bidding strategies transparent to direct competitors.  

PJM responded that it only posts individual, unit-specific data that is older than ten months, well beyond the four-month data lag mandated by FERC.  PJM also stated that it has been posting aggregated data in the form of a supply curve on the PJM website for years, and now it has simply changed the format of its release—providing the same data in tabular form.  PJM argues that there is no way a market participant can deduce the identity of an individual bidder based on the data released in tabular form. 

The full text of Constellations’ Comments and PJM’s Answer are available at www.ferc.gov under Docket NO. ER09-1063.