Guidebook Glossary of Terms Certified Supplier Guidebook
Ancillary Services – those services that are necessary to support Capacity and the transmission of energy from resources to loads while maintaining reliable operation of the transmission provider’s transmission system in accordance with Good Utility Practice.
Arrears – previous charges that are unpaid at the time the current bill is generated.
Authorized Payment Agency – a third party agent (bank, savings & loan, etc.) which has been authorized to collect payments on behalf of the Company.
Backcast – an after-the-fact recalculation of a certified supplier’s hourly load obligation based upon actual weather and system load. This will be used to determine preliminary energy imbalance.
Billing Cycle – the time frame between two regularly scheduled meter readings. End-use customer meter readings are obtained on a regular schedule, which is managed by the Company.
Certified Supplier – a person, corporation, broker, marketer, aggregator, generator or any other entity approved by the Commission to sell electricity to end-use customers, utilizing the jurisdictional transmission and distribution facilities of the Company and registered in the Company’s Customer Choice Program.
Certified Supplier Service Agreement – an agreement that must be signed by both the certified supplier and the Company in order for the certified supplier to participate in the Company’s Customer Choice Program, stating the rights and obligations of each party in the Company’s Customer Choice Program.
Certified Supplier Services – those services that provide the interface and coordination between the certified supplier and the Company in order to affect the delivery of competitive retail electric service to serve end-use customers located within the Company’s service territory.
Certified Supplier Service Charges – all charges stated in the Certified Supplier Tariff and attached rate schedules for those services rendered by the Company or its agent for certified supplier services performed hereunder.
Certified Supplier Tariff – the Company’s PUCO Electric No. 20.
Charge – any fee or charge that is billable by the Company or its agent to a certified supplier or TSA, under Duke Energy's Certified Supplier Tariff, including any certified supplier service charge or fees described in the OATT.
Cinergy Control Area – the control area encompassing the franchised service territories of Cinergy.
Cinergy Control Area Operator – Cinergy's division, personnel or affiliate that is designed as the entity with the responsibility for operating a Control Area consistent with NERC policies and procedures, and the Transmission Provider's policies and procedures.
Commission - the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Commodity – the unbundled generation service of electrical energy which end-use customers may purchase from a certified supplier in the Customer Choice Program.
Communication Link –a telephone line, wireless communication, or other means of transmitting data from a meter to the Company’s remote meter reading hardware.
Company – Duke Energy
Competitive Retail Electric Service – any service involved in supplying or arranging for the supply of electrical energy to end-use customers from the point of generation to point of consumption that has been declared competitive pursuant to the Ohio Revised Code or an Order of the Commission.
Consolidated Billing – a billing service where the Company bills for both the regulated utility charges as well as the certified supplier's charges.
Control Area – an electric power system or combination of electric power systems to which a common automatic generation control scheme is applied in order to:
- Match, at all times, the power output of the generators within the electric power system(s) and capacity and energy purchased from entities outside the electric power system(s), with the load within the electric power system(s);
- Maintain scheduled interchange with other control areas, within the limits of Good Utility Practice;
- Maintain the frequency of the electric power system(s) within reasonable limits in accordance with Good Utility Practice; and
- Provide sufficient generating capacity to maintain operating reserves in accordance with Good Utility Practice.
Coordination Services - those services that permit the type of interface and coordination between a certified supplier and the Company in connection with the delivery of electricity to end-use customers located within the Company's service territory, including load forecasting, certain scheduling-related functions and reconciliation.
Customer Choice Program – a program offered in the State of Ohio as of January 1, 2001 where an end-use customer may select a certified supplier.
DASR (Direct Access Service Request) – an electronic form of communication that may be exchanged between the Company and a certified supplier.
Distribution Losses – energy losses that occur on a LDC system in the process of delivering electrical energy to end-use customers. These losses are usually expressed as a percent of the total energy consumed.
ECAR –(East Central Area Reliability) – the NERC reliability council area which provides electric service to the states of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and parts of eastern Kentucky, western Virginia, western Maryland, western Pennsylvania, northern Tennessee and West Virginia. The organizational purpose of ECAR is to ensure the reliability of the interconnected electricity network of its members.
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) – a standard format for the exchange of electronic information.
Electric Security Plan Standard Service Offer (ESP-SSO) - became effective January 1, 2009 and will continue for a three-year period ending December 31, 2011. ESP-SSO is a rate offered by the Company as approved by the Commission to end-use customers in it's service territory for all essntial electric service to end-use customers who are not receiving competitive services from a certified supplier
End-Use Customer - the final user of generation and regulated delivery services.
Energy Imbalance - is the difference between the energy scheduled by a certified supplier or its designated TSA and the end-use customer's metered consumption adjusted for unaccounted energy.
FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) – the agency which has primary jurisdiction over energy regulation at the federal level.
Federal Reserve Lending Rate – interest rate at which the Federal Reserve lends money, as published daily on Bloomberg’s money market rate page.
Generation Resource Mix – the source of the physical resource required to generate electricity (e.g., green power, coal, or nuclear).
Good Utility Practice – any of the practices, methods and acts engaged in or approved by a significant portion of the electric utility industry during the relevant time period, or any of the practices, methods and acts which, in the exercise of reasonable judgment in light of the facts known at the time the decision was made, could have been expected to accomplish the desired result at a reasonable cost consistent with good business practices, reliability, safety and expedition. Good Utility Practice is not intended to be limited to the optimum practice, method, or act to the exclusion of all others, but rather to be acceptable practices, methods, or acts generally accepted in the region.
Interconnected Operations Services – services, in addition to ancillary services, to facilitate the delivery of power (e.g., transmission services, real power transmission losses).
Interval Meter – an electricity meter which records an end-use customer’s electric usage for defined intervals (e.g., 15 minutes, half-hour, hour, etc.), allowing the possibility for consumption during different time periods to be billed at different rates and providing a means for an end-use customer’s load pattern to be analyzed.
kW (kilowatt) – one kilowatt equals 1,000 watts.
kWh (kilowatt-hour) – the basic unit of electric energy equal to one kilowatt of power supplied to or taken from an electrical circuit steadily for one hour. One kilowatt-hour equals 1,000 watt-hours.
LDC (Local Distribution Company) – an entity that has been granted the authority or has an obligation pursuant to state or local law, regulation or franchise to transmit and distribute electric energy to end-use customers located within a jurisdictional service territory.
Load Forecast – an hourly projection of load prepared by a transmission customer for its load in the Company’s service territory, consisting of, but not limited to, the aggregated load of monthly and interval–metered customers, as adjusted for distribution losses.
Load Profile – as applied to an end-use customer, group of end-use customers, class or system, a load profile or "curve" (as graphically plotted point-to-point, after midnight to midnight) shows the power (as actual consumption or "normalized" as a percentage of maximum demand) supplied during a specific period of time plotted by time of occurrence.
Load Research Meters – interval meters installed by the Company throughout its service territory that monitor hourly energy consumption of selected end-use customers to provide data for developing load profiles for various customer classes.
MW (megawatt) – one megawatt equals one million watts or 1,000 kilowatts.
MWh (megawatt-hour) – one megawatt-hour equals one million watt-hours or 1,000 kilowatt-hours.
Market-Based Standard Service Offer (MBSSO) – became effective January 1, 2005 and remained in effect for a four-year period ending December 31, 2008. MBSSO is a rate offered by the Company as approved by the Commission to end-use customers in its service territory for all essential electric service to end-use customers who are not receiving competitive services from a certified supplier.
Meter Read Date – the date on which the Company schedules a meter to be read for purposes of producing an end-use customer bill in accordance with the Company’s regularly scheduled billing cycles.
Monthly Meter – a consumption meter that records total energy (kWh) and peak demand (kW), where applicable, for the billing cycle but does not have the capability to record the dates and times the energy was consumed.
Multi-tiered Rate – a rate where each group (tier) of units of consumption (kWh) are priced at a certain rate while other groups of units of consumption are priced at a different rate.
Native Load Customers – the wholesale and retail power customers of the transmission provider on whose behalf the transmission provider, by statute, franchise, regulatory requirement, or contract, has undertaken an obligation to construct and operate the transmission provider’s system to meet the reliable electric needs of such customers.
NERC – the North American Electric Reliability Council. The council’s mission is to promote the reliability of the electricity supply for North America. In short, NERC helps electric utilities and other electricity suppliers work together to keep the power on. It does this by reviewing the past for lessons learned, monitoring the present for compliance with policies, standards, principles, and guides, and assessing the future reliability of the bulk electric systems.
NERC Tag – a standardized means of electronically communicating and tracking details of an open access energy transaction among all involved parties. Information contained on the tag includes: interchange transaction ID number, 24 hours of energy profiles, loss accounting, transaction path and products, and transaction days.
Network Customer – an entity receiving transmission service pursuant to the terms of the transmission provider’s network integration transmission service under Module B of the OATT.
Network Integration Transmission Service – the transmission service provided under Module B of the OATT.
Network Load – the load that a network customer designates for Network Integration Transmission Service under Module B of the OATT. The Network Customer’s Network Load shall include all load served by the output of any Network Resources designated by the Network Customer. A Network Customer may elect to designate less than its total load as Network Load but may not designate only part of the load at a discrete point of delivery. Where an eligible customer has elected not to designate a particular load at discrete points of delivery as Network Loads, the eligible customer is responsible for making separate arrangements under Module B of the OATT for any point-to-point transmission service that may be necessary for such non-designated load.
Network Resource – any designated generating resource or portion thereof, that is owned or leased by a Network Customer or whose output is under contract to a Network customer, and that is designated under the Network Integration Transmission Service provisions of Module B of the OATT. Network resources do not include any resource, or any portion thereof, that is committed for sale to third parties or otherwise cannot be called upon to meet the Network Customer’s Network Load on a non-interruptible basis.
Non-volumetric Rate – a flat charge to the end-use customer regardless of the amount of consumption for a given period of time.
OATT ( Open Access Transmission Tariff) – the open access transmission and energy markets tariff filed by the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc. or the open access transmission tariff filed by Cinergy, whichever is applicable, under which the transmission and interconnection service over the Cinergy transmission system is provided, as filed with the FERC and as it may be amended from time to time, or any successor tariff.
Open Access Same-time Information System (OASIS) – a computerized information system, developed as an internet application that allows the Transmission Provider to access (i) Transmission Service and Ancillary Service information with Transmission Customers, and (ii) energy market clearing information with market participants and Control Area Operators. The OASIS requirements and standards of conduct were initially defined in FERC's Order 889, as superseded by order No. 2004. Additional information about the OASIS is available at http://oasis.midwestiso.org/OASIS/MISO
PIPP (Percentage of Income Payment Plan) – a statewide utility program in Ohio which sets guidelines for low income end-use customer payments to utilities managed by the Ohio Department of Development.
PUCO – the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Rate Ready – a certified supplier billing option where the Company will perform consumption calculations from meter reads and apply the certified supplier’s rates to create charges for the end-use customer.
Record Layouts – a predefined format for which data is organized for electronic transmission.
Regulated Utility Charges – utility charges for noncompetitive services including but not limited to, tariffed transmission and distribution and generation services that are under the jurisdiction of the Commission. May also include utility charges for noncompetitive gas services.
Reserved Capacity – the maximum amount of capacity and energy that the Transmission Provider agrees to transmit for the Transmission Customer over the Transmission Provider’s Transmission System between the point(s) of receipt and the point(s) of deilvery under Module B of the OATT. Reserved Capacity shall be expressed in terms of whole MW's on a sixty (60) minute interval (commencing on the clock hour) basis.
Retail Tariff (PUCO Tariff No. 19) – a tariff filed with the PUCO by the Company containing the Service Regulations, Tariff Rate Schedules, and Tariff Rider Schedules for end-use customers.
Schedule – a document prepared by the certified supplier or its designated TSA and submitted to the OASIS System Administrator, that provides the schedule for receipt and delivery of energy for the benefit of end-use customers.
Service Regulations – the certified supplier service regulations as defined in the Company’s Certified Supplier Tariff.
Small Commercial Customer – an industrial or commercial customer who uses electricity for non-residential purposes and consumes less than 700,000 kWh of electricity per year and is not part of a national account involving multiple facilities in one or more states.
Special Meter Reads – meter reads requested by certified suppliers on dates other than the scheduled monthly meter read date.
TSA (Transmission Scheduling Agent) – an entity that is an eligible transmission customer under the OATT, performing transmission scheduling and other bulk power services to deliver electrical energy into the Company’s service territory for the Customer Choice Program. A certified supplier may act as a TSA, if the certified supplier is an eligible transmission customer, or hire another entity that is an eligible transmission customer to perform these functions.
Tariff Rate Schedules – documents filed with the P.U.C.O. specifying the charges for various certified supplier services.
Time of Use Rate – a rate where the amount charged per unit (kWh or kW) varies according to the time of day it was consumed; this reflects the difference in on-peak and off-peak demands and the costs to provide service at those times.
Transmission Customer – the entity authorized to schedule power into, out of, or through the Cinergy Control Area, as described in the OATT filed with the FERC.
Transmission Provider – the entity providing transmission service as described in the OATT filed with the FERC.
