Rick:

Regarding this call tomorrow: are you going to be on this?

I gather from Jim there is a lot of worry about saying anything about how
the unit commitment process works (if it is in a centralized fashion).
That's fine, but I just wanted to get your own views on this. I wrote this
in response to the idea that we were looking for something quick and
effective to put in ASAP. The closer the parallels to working markets (e.g.
PJM) the better. That to me means following the PJM model fairly closely,
and not diverging into other tracks on the RTO process. However, I see how
people like Sue Mara are going to be very upset about this.

We can develop some other options (and they are being proposed in many of
the RTO debates around the country), but I don't want us to end up
advocating things that either won't work, are very complicated to design and
implement (e.g. the California system, with re-dispatch iterations etc.), or
just plain don't make sense. I guess the next question is how to present
this to Steve Kean.

Anyway, as tomorrow's call seems to be controversial it might be useful to
have a chat first. I should be in the office most of the afternoon, or you
can reach me on (617) 513-5904 (cellphone).


Seabron