Glossary - c

For your convenience, this page contains an alphabetically organized list of terms, definitions and common acronyms used in the electric utility industry.

Term/Acronym	Definition
CAO	Control Area Operator
CARD	CRR Auction Revenue Distribution
CCD+	Cash Concentration and Disbursement Plus
CCF	Capacity Conversion Factor
CCN	Certificate of Convenience and Necessity
CEII	Critical Energy Infrastructure Information
CEO	Chief Executive Officer
CFE	Comision Federal de Electricidad
CIM	Common Information Model
CMLTD	Current Maturities of Long-Term Debt
CMZ	Congestion Management Zone
COP	Current Operating Plan
COPS	Commercial Operations Subcommittee
CPS	Control Performance Standard
CPT	Central Prevailing Time
CR	Competitive Retailer
CRE	Closely Related Elements
CRR	Congestion Revenue Right
CSA	Continuous Service Agreement
CSC	Commercially Significant Constraint
CSV	Comma Separated Value
CTX	Corporate Trade Exchange
Capacity Trade	A QSE-to-QSE financial transaction that transfers responsibility to supply capacity between a buyer and a seller at a Settlement Point.
Capital Asset	An asset expected to have a useful life of at least twelve (12) months that is not bought or sold in the normal course of business.
Capital Expenditure	An outlay of money to acquire a Capital Asset or extend the useful life of an existing Capital Asset for at least twelve (12) months.
Central Prevailing Time (CPT)	Either Central Standard Time or Central Daylight Time, in effect in Austin, Texas.
Certificate of Compliance	A certificate issued by ERCOT stating that the Metering Facilities referred to in the certificate satisfy the certification criteria for Metering Facilities contained in these Protocols.
Check Meter	A redundant revenue quality meter, which produces equal or better accuracy than the primary revenue quality meter, connected at the same metering point, which must be certified in accordance with the ERCOT Protocols.
Closely Related Elements (CREs)	Those transmission facilities that have shift factor impacts similar to those associated with a particular Commercially Significant Constraint (CSC), and for which there exists a limited amount of Boundary Generation Resources between it and the particular CSC, so that the zonal deployment of Balancing Energy Service is effective in mitigating Zonal Congestion.
Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE)	The government agency in Mexico charged with the responsibility of operating the Mexican national electricity grid.
Commercial Model	Transmission model developed by ERCOT that arranges groups of Generation Resource and Load busses into Congestion Zones that have similar impacts on Commercially Significant Constraints.
Commercially Significant Constraint (CSC)	A constraint in the ERCOT Transmission Grid that is found, through the process described in Section 7, to result in Congestion which limits the free flow of energy within the ERCOT market to a commercially significant degree.
Commercially Significant Constraint (CSC) Limit	The maximum power flow across a CSC allowed to maintain reliable operation.
Common Information Model (CIM)	A standard way to communicate information about a transmission system. The CIM is used to describe the ERCOT transmission system topology consisting of Transmission Elements, including all the parameters needed to describe the Transmission Elements and how they interrelate to one another. The CIM that ERCOT and the TSP use must conform to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) standards for CIMs.
Competitive Constraint	A contingency and limiting Transmission Element pair that is determined to be competitive by an appropriate TAC subcommittee.
Competitive Retailer (CR)	A Municipally Owned Utility (MOU) or an Electric Cooperative (EC) that offers Customer Choice and sells electric energy at retail in the restructured electric power market in Texas, or a Retail Electric Provider (REP).
Compliance Period	A calendar year beginning January 1 and ending December 31 in which Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) are required of a Retail Entity.
Compliance Premium	A payment awarded by the Program Administrator in conjunction with a REC that is generated by a renewable energy source that is not powered by wind and meets the criteria of subsection (l) of P.U.C. SUBST. R. 25.173, Goal for Renewable Energy. For the purpose of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) requirements, one Compliance Premium is equal to one REC.
Congestion	The situation that exists when requests for power transfers across a Transmission Facility element or set of elements, when netted, exceed the transfer capability of such elements.
Congestion Revenue Right (CRR)	A financial instrument that entitles the holder to be charged or to receive compensation (i.e., congestion rent), depending on the instrument, when the ERCOT Transmission Grid is congested in the DAM or in Real-Time. Flowgate Right (FGR) A type of CRR that entitles the holder to receive compensation and is evaluated in each CRR Auction and DAM as the positive power flows represented by the quantity of the CRR bid or offer (MW) on a flowgate (i.e., predefined directional network element or a predefined bundle of directional network elements). Point-to-Point (PTP) Obligation A type of CRR that entitles the holder to be charged or to receive compensation and is evaluated in each CRR Auction and DAM as the positive and negative power flows on all directional network elements created by the injection and withdrawal at the specified source and sink points of the quantity represented by the CRR bid or offer (MW). Point-to-Point (PTP) Option A type of CRR that is evaluated in each CRR Auction and DAM as the positive power flows on all directional network elements created by the injection and withdrawal at the specified source and sink points in the quantity represented by the CRR bid or offer (MW), excluding all negative flows on all directional network elements. A PTP Option entitles the holder to receive compensation equal to the positive energy price difference between the sink and the source Settlement Point Prices. A PTP Option with Refund is evaluated in the same manner and compensated as described in Section 7.4.2, PCRR Allocation Terms and Conditions.
Congestion Revenue Right (CRR) Account Holder	An Entity that is qualified to become the owner of record of CRRs and is registered as a CRR Account Holder with ERCOT.
Congestion Revenue Right (CRR) Auction	A periodic auction by ERCOT that allows eligible CRR Account Holders to buy and sell CRRs.
Congestion Revenue Right (CRR) Network Model	A model of ERCOT network topology to be used in conducting a CRR Auction. It must be based on, but is not the same as, the Updated Network Model, as detailed in Section 3.10.3, CRR Network Model.
Congestion Revenue Right (CRR) Owner	A CRR Account Holder that owns one or more CRRs.
Congestion Zone	A grouping of busses that create a similar Shift Factor on CSCs.
Continuous Service Agreement (CSA)	An arrangement between the owner or controller of a leased Premise and a CR wherein the CR provides service to the leased Premise between tenants so that the Premise does not experience discontinuation of electric service during vacancy.
Control Area	An electrical system, bound by interconnect (tie line) metering and telemetry, that continuously regulates, through automatic Resource control, its Resource(s) and interchange schedules to match its system Load and frequency schedule.
Control Area Operator (CAO)	An individual or set of individuals responsible for monitoring and controlling operation of a Control Area.
Controllable Load Resource	See Resource
Controllable Load Resource Desired Load	The MW consumption for a Controllable Load Resource produced by summing its Scheduled Power Consumption and Ancillary Service deployments.
Cost Allocation Zone	One of the four zones in effect during the 2003 ERCOT market as they are changed pursuant to Section 3.4.2, Load Zone Modifications. A Cost Allocation Zone may be used by ERCOT to uplift certain costs to a QSE’s Load regardless of Non-Opt-In Entity (NOIE) Load Zone.
Counter-Party	A single Entity that is a QSE and/or a CRR Account Holder. A Counter-Party includes all registrations as a QSE, all subordinate QSEs, and all CRR Account Holders by the same Entity.
CR of Record	See Competitive Retailer
Critical Energy Infrastructure Information (CEII)	Information concerning proposed or existing critical infrastructure (physical or virtual) that: Relates to the production, generation, transmission or distribution of energy; Could be useful to a person planning an attack on critical infrastructure; Is exempt from mandatory disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552; and Gives strategic information beyond the location of the critical infrastructure.
Current Operating Plan	See Ancillary Services Plan
Current Operating Plan (COP)	A plan by a QSE reflecting anticipated operating conditions for each of the Resources that it represents for each hour in the next seven Operating Days, including Resource operational data, Resource Status, and Ancillary Service Schedule.
Current Operating Plan (COP) and Trades Snapshot	A record of a QSE’s Capacity Trades, Energy Trades, and most recent COP.
Current System Conditions	The Real-Time status of the ERCOT System, which may affect ERCOT's operational decisions.
Customer	An Entity that purchases electricity for its own consumption.
Customer Choice	The freedom of a retail Customer to purchase electric services, either individually or on an aggregated basis with other retail Customers, from the provider or providers of the Customer’s choice and to choose among various fuel types, energy efficiency programs, and renewable power suppliers.
Customer Choice Pilot	A project used to allow the PUCT to evaluate the implementation of Customer Choice as provided in PURA 39.104.
Customer Premise	See Premise.
Customer Registration Database	The database maintained by the registration agent containing information identifying each Premise, including current and previous CRs serving the Premise.

Glossary - c

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