TOPICS:

1. New Board Chairman
2. SAS 70 Audit
3. PRRs Approved

ERCOT Names New Board Chairman

The ERCOT Board of Directors named information technology executive Mark Armentrout as the new chairman at the December 13 meeting.  Armentrout replaces Michael S. Greene, who announced his retirement from the board after serving a combined six years as chairman.  Armentrout, of McKinney, Texas, was elected to the ERCOT board in June 2003, when ERCOT first added independent members – those unaffiliated with market participant organizations.  He is an executive vice president of MBNA Technology, Inc., part of MBNA America, the world’s largest independent credit card issuer.

Greene, chairman and CEO of TXU Power, the generation subsidiary of TXU Corporation, first served as chairman in 1997-98, and assumed the role again from June 2002 to the present.  The election of Armentrout as chairman of ERCOT’s board marks early compliance with the requirements of Senate Bill 408, approved by the 79th Texas Legislature, to install an independent director as board chair by September 2006.  Bob Manning, director of engineering for H-E-B Grocery Company, will continue in his role as vice-chairman, which he has held since June 2002.

Two new board members were confirmed for the 2006 board at ERCOT’s annual membership meeting which preceded the board meeting: Tom Standish, CenterPoint Energy, representing the investor-owned utility segment, and R. Scott Gahn, Just Energy, representing the retail electric provider segment.

Other board action included:

Approval of the SAS 70 Type II Audit

Sixteen of the 18 control areas reviewed for the SAS 70 Type II Audit received a “clean” or unqualified opinion.  Two control areas related to logical security and facilities security received a qualified opinion.  Finance & Audit Committee Chair Clifton Karnei noted that approximately half of the ISOs receive qualified opinions, particularly in the security area, but he stressed that ERCOT staff’s goal should be to achieve an unqualified opinion next year.

Approval of Nine Protocol Revision Requests (PRRs)

• PRR620 – Notifying QSEs of their Down Balancing Energy Service Percentages
• PRR621 – QSE Qualification Using Renewable Resources
• PRR622 – Calculation of Marginal Heat Rate for Resources Receiving OOME Up Instructions
• PRR623 – Resource Plan Use for OOME Instructed Deviation
• PRR628 – ERCOT Operation Performance – Non-Spinning Reserve Service Deployments
• PRR641 – Clarifying RPRS Scheduling Language
• PRR643 – Shorten Payment Default Timelines
• PRR644 – Ancillary Service Re-qualification
• SCR745 – Retail Market Outage Evaluation and Resolution (Approved Phases I and II and tabled Phase III)
• SCR747 – Removal of Price Administration for Zonal Congestion

The TAC Recommendation Reports, Impact Analyses and cost-benefit analyses (if applicable) are included in the items distributed for the Board meeting. In addition, these PRRs and SCRs and their supporting materials are posted on the ERCOT Web site.

Confirmation of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for 2006

The TAC roster and other board meeting materials are available on the ERCOT Web site.