April 11, 2008

 

 

Requested Client Action Information Only

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ISO News and Information

 

 

Improvements to CAISO Stakeholder Process

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Summary

The CAISO has posted a stakeholder process structure and master stakeholder engagement plan and announces a new approach to stakeholder meetings.

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Main Text

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) seeks to increase the active participation of market participants in the stakeholder process and has posted a stakeholder process structure and master stakeholder engagement plan to its website at http://www.caiso.com/docs/2005/06/09/2005060910374912494.html. 

 

In 2007, the CAISO made a number of changes to the stakeholder process to improve its quality, consistency and transparency.  The improvements included:

 

·         A formalized structure for planning and conducting stakeholder meetings, including centralized management of meeting preparation and facilitation, resulting in more consistency. 

·         CAISO inter-departmental service-level agreements, signed by CAISO executives with staff accountability tied to performance, that specify new guidelines for timely document postings, meeting preparation and stakeholder comments management, to promote quality in the stakeholder process.

·         Mandatory “calibration” meetings with all CAISO divisions that conduct stakeholder processes to increase the uniformity of the stakeholder process.

·         Revised CAISO Board of Governors meeting structure to enable stakeholders to represent their positions to the Board while an issue is being deliberated, rather than solely in public comments at the beginning of the meeting.

 

In the CAISO’s 2007 client survey, Market Participants recognized that these improvements made the stakeholder process better, but said that more remains to be done.  Market Participants added that it can be difficult to track the timelines and milestones of multiple stakeholder initiatives.  They also stated that it can be challenging to prioritize and assign resources to multiple stakeholder processes and that it is sometimes unclear where an individual stakeholder meeting resides within the overall stakeholder process for that particular market initiative. 

 

Effective immediately, the CAISO is taking steps to address these concerns and has posted the following two new documents to help stakeholders participate in the stakeholder process:

 

·         Master Stakeholder Engagement Plan - an overview of the entire landscape of major stakeholder processes and their timelines (http://www.caiso.com/1fa4/1fa4ee2c9750.pdf)

·         The California ISO Stakeholder Process - Flow Diagram - summarizes the structure of the CAISO stakeholder process, which generally consists of three rounds of dialogue with stakeholders on major policy issues (http://www.caiso.com/1fa4/1fa4ed47d70.pdf).

 

These documents will be reviewed and discussed with stakeholders at the beginning of major stakeholder meetings.

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For More Information Contact

Tom Doughty at tdoughty@caiso.com or 916.608.7373