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Aggregation: Forming a group of consumers who together can bargain for the lowest possible electric rates.

Aggregator: An entity that puts together customers into a buying group for the purchase of electricity.

Ancillary Services: Those services other than scheduled energy, which are required to maintain system reliability and meet the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) operating criteria. Such services include spinning, non-spinning, and replacement reserves, regulation, voltage control and black start capability.

Bilateral Contract: A contract between an ESP and an end-user. This Contract is a type of market mechanism in which ESPs and end-users enter into contracts explicitly stating price and conditions for the physical dispatch of power, and paying intermediate transmission and distribution providers for the delivery service. The contract may or may not be through a retailer and may or may not involve aggregation.

Broker: An entity that acts as an agent or intermediary in the sale and purchase of electricity but that does not take title to electricity. The broker may also aggregate customers and arrange for transmission and other ancillary services as needed.

Company: The electric utility affiliate or affiliates responsible for the wires services.

Cost of Service Analysis/Study: The model used by a utility to determine how costs should be allocated among different customers. Also used to establish the relative magnitude of the costs associated with each element of an unbundled charge.

Day of Flow: The day upon which energy deliveries will be made and measured for a 24 hour period beginning at one o'clock a.m. (1:00 a.m.) Central Prevailing Time.

Direct Access: Retail, bilateral contracts between sellers and buyers.

Distribution Services: The regulated electric utility function of taking delivery of energy from the transmission grid and distributing it to the End-Use Consumer. This function consists of the distribution wires services and the customer services functions of meter reading, billing, accounting, and collection.

Divestiture: The stripping off of one utility function from the others by selling (spinning off) or in some other way changing the ownership of the assets related to that function. Most commonly associated with spinning off generation assets so they are no longer owned by the shareholders that own the transmission and distribution assets.

Divest: The legal transfer of ownership and control to an entity that is not an affiliated interest.

End-Use Consumer: A customer in the electric industry who buys electric power to be consumed as a final product (not for resale) for consumption within their physical location. It may include residential, commercial, agricultural, and industrial load.

Energy Service: The provision of energy by an ESP to an End-Use Consumer.

Energy Service Provider (ESP): An entity certified by the Commission as an approved supplier of electric generation services. An ESP may be an electric generator, broker, marketer, or aggregator. ESPs are further classified as "Scheduling ESPs" and "Non-Scheduling ESPs" where scheduling refers to electric load scheduling.

Enrollment Notice: Notification provided by an ESP to the Company that an End-Use Consumer has selected said ESP for purposes of receiving Energy Service.

Market Power: Market power means the ability of a seller, or group of sellers, to influence price for a significant period of time.

Marketer: An entity that, as an intermediary, purchases electricity and takes title to electricity for sale to retail customers.

Power Delivery Service (PDS): The provision of the wires services by the Company for an ESP under an approved tariff.

Service Agreement: A contract for service between the Company and an ESP.

System Operator: The entity responsible for the operation of the transmission grid within a control area. The control area is an electrical region which regulates its generation in order to balance load and maintain planned interchange schedules with other control areas and assists in controlling the frequency of the interconnected systems. The System Operator dispatches generation output to balance with actual load to meet reliability criteria established by the NERC.

Transmission Services: The wires services and associated ancillary services necessary for receiving energy from an ESP and reliably transporting it for distribution.

Unbundling: Separating the single bundled rate charged to the End-Use Consumer into its individual parts of generation, transmission, and distribution, and identifying the costs of each.

Wires Services: All electric utility functions except the generation (energy production) function. Typically refers to the transmission and distribution services necessary for the transporting and delivery of electric energy to the End-Use Consumer.

ELECTRIC POWER ASSOCIATIONS OF MISSISSIPPI
For more information e-mail Ron Stewart or
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