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The California ISO implements suite of transparency enhancements

By Keoni Almeida, senior manager, Stakeholder Affairs
October 13, 2022

 

One of the pillars of the ISO’s latest strategic plan is to “foster broad stakeholder trust through transparency, collaboration and mutually beneficial solutions.” In response to this objective, the ISO launched an effort late last year targeted at improving data transparency, accuracy, and accessibility so that customers and stakeholders are more able to navigate our website and obtain relevant data needed to make better business decisions.

As a result of this effort, the ISO has since launched a suite of information improvements that will be beneficial to all stakeholders and customers.

The enhancements are in direct response to numerous requests received from stakeholders that outlined the need for changes, including new data elements to be added to existing reports and creating new reports for improved data analysis.

One of the new reports created as part of this effort is the Daily Energy Storage Report, which shows key metrics related to the performance of storage and hybrid resources on the ISO system. The report offers interactive charts for bids into the ISO market, market awards, the state of charge, and procurement of ancillary services for both day-ahead and real-time markets, all helping to accurately track patterns and define how storage and hybrid resources are being dispatched.

 

With the recent growth of battery storage and hybrid resources on our grid, the ISO is focused on making tools such as these more accessible and usable to stakeholders.

To make it easier to find the storage report, a new button has been placed on the Supply page of Today’s Outlook. The report was also added to the ISO Today mobile app, under “Additional reports” on the Supply page.

 

Another popular enhancement which proved to be very helpful during the September 2022 heat wave event is the new and improved demand trend graph located on the Demand page of Today’s Outlook. The graph now highlights the occurrence of a demand response event, as observed on Sept. 6 when prolonged excessive heat caused stress on the grid. 

The new Daily Energy Storage Report and the refinement to the demand trend graph are just two of a host of additions and upgrades recently launched by the ISO.

Other improvements include enhancements to the Open Access Same-time Information System (OASIS), such as the publication of reports for Scheduling Coordinators and other users to better understand activities in the market related to energy schedule reductions; power exports and load; adjustments to power dispatches for generation resources; and resource sufficiency evaluation data showing the amount of supply that utilities need to adequately meet their demand.

For the full list of improvements that have been implemented to date, and details on how to use the improved information in the reports, visit the Data Transparency Improvements 2022.

The electricity landscape in the West is a complex interaction of many systems and entities. With nearly 300 market participants in the ISO market today, it is essential that we provide clear, accessible information about the state of the system and accurate and timely market information so that customers can participate in the ISO markets with confidence.

We look forward to the continued partnership and feedback to ensure we are meeting the growing and pressing data needs of our customers and stakeholders in California and throughout the Western region. 

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