The Texas PUC filed a proposal to push back the release of State Estimator data in the nodal market to 14 days instead of the current one hour.  Some market participants raised concerns that the data could reveal bidding strategies at generation-only buses.  The State Estimator Report included information on transmission flows, transformer flows, voltages and tap positions and gave market participants information on what is happening on the grid.

          NRG and Calpine proposed a new ERCOT rule that would have pushed the data release back to 60 days but that timeframe was opposed by other market participants and members of the PUC (RT, Aug-02).

          It can be argued that the early release of the State Estimator Report is needed to understand events that occur in the market and to confirm that it is working properly, though it could be used to glean other information such as bid curves, generator on-off status and generator operating levels that are commercially sensitive.

          Pushing back the release of the data to two weeks was designed to address those concerns.  A change to the data in the report itself is not possible before the looming go-live date for the nodal market.