On February 6, 2015, FERC ruled, in its Order on Rehearing regarding certain reporting requirements of Order No. 768, that Electronic Quarterly Reports (“EQR”) filers will no longer need to submit an electronic tag (“e-Tag”) ID for each transaction reported in their EQRs if an e-Tag was used to schedule the transaction.
FERC originally issued Order No. 768 on September 21, 2012. In Order No. 768, FERC required that EQRs include e-Tag ID data for any transactions where an e-Tag was used to schedule the transaction (see September 28, 2012 edition of the WER). Such e-Tag information would include the source, movement, delivery of power, and the responsible parties to each aspect of a scheduled, physical interchange transaction. In Order No. 768, FERC explained that the information was important for price transparency in jurisdictional markets and thus outweighed any additional burdens on the reporting parties.
In its Order on Rehearing, FERC reconsidered the issue, stating that FERC “is mindful that EQR filers would bear potentially substantial costs to comply with the requirement to include e-Tag ID information in the EQR.” FERC added that, after further “consideration of the arguments raised in the rehearing requests, we are persuaded that the initial and ongoing compliance burdens and costs may be significantly higher than the Commission’s estimates included in Order No. 768.”
A copy of the Commission order is available here.