ISO New England Sets Schedule for Wholesale Electricity Markets Implementation; Region's Power Markets Set to Open in April.

HOLYOKE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 8, 1999--Officials from ISO New England today announced that April 1, 1999 has been targeted as the opening day for New England's wholesale electricity marketplace. At its January meeting, ISO New England's Board of Directors approved a comprehensive and ambitious twelve-week schedule, which concludes with the markets implementation. The markets were conditionally approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on December 18, 1998.

ISO officials acknowledge that the schedule is challenging because there are several key milestones that need to be achieved prior to giving the green light for startup of the markets. This new system has been designed to allow ISO New England to run the region's competitive wholesale electric energy, capacity and ancillary services markets for the NEPOOL (New England Power Pool) participating organizations. The system uses data collected from bidding, bilateral contracts, metering, and the actual dispatch for use in settling the markets and billing for these services.

Key milestones include deliveries of enhanced hardware and software from a number of business partners, and the subsequent integration, testing and validation of these products to ensure that all interfacing systems required to support the markets are fully functional and operational. The schedule also includes several trial runs of the markets system and a two-phase customer dress rehearsal to ensure all market players are fully connected and comfortable with the markets system. The first trial run is scheduled for Monday, January 11, 1999. At the conclusion of the trial runs, ISO New England will conduct an integration test of the entire system to ensure its Year 2000 readiness.

"We recognize our responsibility to implement the new competitive wholesale markets at the earliest opportunity. And this responsibility is acknowledged by our ambitious schedule," said, Philip J. Pellegrino, president and chief executive officer of ISO New England. "The critical path items, from validation of our customized information system to ensuring the market participants are ready once the bell sounds, need to be done in a sequential order. If the schedule proceeds as planned and no major difficulties are encountered, then we fully expect to meet this date." ISO New England plans to issue periodic updates on the progress toward markets implementation. These updates will be posted on its website at www.iso-ne.com.

ISO New England is the independent system operator responsible for the management of the region's six-state bulk power generation and transmission systems as well as administering the wholesale electricity marketplace on behalf of the New England Power Pool. Approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in June 1997, ISO New England Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation headquartered in Holyoke, Massachusetts.