General Information
Recent Changes
General Information
What is eMarket?
eMarket is the software platform that allows registered market participants to submit data required to operate the Day-Ahead and Real-Time Energy Markets, the Reserve Market, and the Regulation Market. Market participants also use eMarket to retrieve the day-ahead clearing results.
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What web browsers work with eMarket market-user interface (MUI)?
While eMarket can be accessed through the various internet web browsers that support TLS 1.2-secured 128-bit encryption, the ISO supports only certain browsers and versions. Please refer to the Web Browser Support for SMD Applications section of the ISO’s website (located under Participate > Support > Web Browser Support) for information on the browsers and security protocols ISO New England supports.
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What “warning” messages does the eMarket issue?
eMarket validates participant generation offers and reports warnings on inconsistencies within the offer data that violate market monitoring thresholds and expose the overall offer to mitigation. eMarket issues warnings under the following circumstances:
Data-Inconsistency Warnings
- Claim 10—if the asset is registered as a claim-10 resource and the offered claim-10 value is zero, greater than the demonstrated claim-10 capability value (if one is defined), or greater than the offered claim-30 value
- Claim 30—if the asset is registered as a claim-30 resource and the offered claim-30 value is zero or greater than the demonstrated claim-30 capability value (if one is defined)
- Claim 10 compared with start-up and notification times—if the sum of the cold start-up and notification times for a claim-10 resource is greater than 10 minutes. The warning is to remind the participant that by submitting such time values, the unit’s off-line reserve capability will not be recognized if this capability is designated to satisfy the participant’s obligation in the Forward Reserve Market.
- Claim 30 compared with start-up and notification times—if the sum of the cold start-up and notification times for a claim-30 resource is greater than 30 minutes. The warning is to remind the participant that by submitting such time values, the unit’s off-line reserve capability will not be recognized if this capability is designated to satisfy the participant’s obligation in the Forward Reserve Market.
- Minimum run and minimum down times for units registered as claim-10 or claim-30 resources—if a unit is registered as a resource with either claim-10 or claim-30 off-line reserve capability and a participant submits nonzero values for claim 10 or claim 30 and values greater than one hour for minimum run times and minimum down times. The warning is to remind the participant that by submitting time values greater than one hour, the off-line reserve capability of the unit will not be recognized if this capability is designated to satisfy the participant’s obligation in the Forward Reserve Market.
- Automatic (regulation) ramp rate (ARR)—if the value a participant submits for a unit’s automatic ramp-rate capability, if one is defined, exceeds the unit’s demonstrated ARR value
- Unit ramp rate—if the value a participant submits for a unit’s ramp-rate capability, if one is defined, exceeds the unit’s demonstrated unit ramp rate
- Economic maximum (ecomax) limit compared with the unit’s capacity supply obligation (CSO)—for units with nonzero CSOs, if the value a participant submits for a unit’s economic maximum limit, in either a schedule detail or an hourly update, is less than the unit’s CSO
- Must run compared with minimum run time—when a unit’s must-run status is not set for the number of consecutive hours needed for the unit to cover its minimum run time within a market day
- Unavailable compared with minimum down time—when a unit’s unavailable status is not set for the number of consecutive hours needed for the unit to cover its minimum down time within a market day
- Maximum daily energy—
- When a participant submits, in the schedule detail and hourly updates, a nonblank (non-null) maximum daily energy value that is less than the unit’s economic minimum (ecomin) multiplied by its minimum run-time.
- When a participant submits a nonblank value for a unit’s maximum daily energy, if (1) the unit is self-scheduled for a number of hours (not necessarily consecutive and taking into consideration its default dispatch-availability status and the hourly override of the status), and (2) the value is less than the economic-minimum limit multiplied by the total number of self-scheduled hours
Market Monitoring Threshold Violation Warnings
eMarket issues a warning whenever any of the following offer parameters a participant has submitted exceeds the threshold associated with the parameter’s reference value set by the ISO’s market monitor:
- Hot/intermediate/cold start-up cost
- No-load cost
- Economic-maximum limit
- Economic-minimum limit
- Emergency-minimum limit
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What “error” messages does eMarket issue about “thresholds on reference” values?
Pursuant to the revisions of Market Rule 1, Appendix A, on the automation of participant-offer mitigations, eMarket rejects offers for the following parameters that violate the threshold on the reference value set by the ISO’s market monitor:
- Hot/intermediate/cold start-up time
- Hot/intermediate/cold-start notification time
- Hot-to-cold time
- Hot-to-intermediate time
- Minimum down time
- Minimum run time
- Sum of the start-up, notification, minimum run time, and minimum down time offer values that exceeds the sum of the same reference values by more than the threshold value for each set of the hot, intermediate, and cold values
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Why does a user have to enter a zero in the value fields instead of leaving them blank?
Leaving eMarket’s value fields blank can cause errors in downloading web services data. To avoid this, be sure to enter a zero if there are no other numerical values to enter.
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Recent Changes
How does eMarket accommodate Energy Market Offer Flexibility changes?
On December 3, 2014, eMarket was revised to support the following Energy Market Offer Flexibility (EMOF) changes to the ISO tariff (see the Energy Market Offer Flexibility project page for more information on the changes):
Hourly offers/bids in the energy market
Participants can submit hourly profiles of the following offer/bid parameters, in addition to the asset limits (i.e., emergency minimum, ecomin, ecomax, real-time high operating limit [RTHOL], and minimum and maximum consumption) and asset status (economic, self-schedule [must-run], and unavailable) previously supported by eMarket:
- Incremental energy offers/bids (price/megawatt [MW] pairs) for generators and dispatchable asset-related demand
- Start-up and no-load costs for generators
- Notification and start-up times for generators, which will allow participants to reflect the hours that fast-start generators are actually staffed and the hours the generators are available for commitment with notification outside the staffed hours
- Ramp rate (single value or ramp-rate curve) for generators and asset-related demand
- Claim-10 and claim-30 reserve capability for generators and asset-related demand
Hourly offers in the Regulation Market
Participants can submit hourly profiles for the following regulation parameters, in addition to the regulation limits and regulation availability status:
- Automatic response rate
- Regulation offer price
Negative offers
The floor price for energy offers has been lowered to minus $150. The floor price for regulation offers also has been lowered to a negative value. Therefore, participants can submit negative values, as follows:
- In incremental energy offers/bids for generators and dispatchable asset-related demand
- For the start-up and no-load costs of generators
- In price-sensitive and virtual (increment/decrement) demand bids
- For the regulation service price
Intraday reoffers
Real-time intraday reoffer periods are the periods during which participants can update the hourly profiles of their financial offers for future hours of the operating day, as follows:
- In the energy market, the offers for the next hour of the operating day can be changed up to 30 minutes before the start of the hour.
- In the Regulation Market, the regulation offer price for the next hour can be changed up to 5 minutes before the start of the hour.
Fuel-blend information
Participants submitting offers for multifuel generators can specify the fuel-blend basis for each of the financial energy offers: start-up and no-load costs and the price of every incremental energy offer. They must specify the percentage of each fuel the generator is configured to use (as specified by the ISO’s internal market monitor), which serves as the basis for the price submitted. The fuel-blend information can be changed during the intraday reoffer period to reflect a change in the fuel the generator uses. The fuel-blend information is needed for updating the reference levels in the generator mitigation schedule.
Fuel-price adjustment (FPA) requests
Participants with fossil fuel (coal, gas, oil) generators can submit fuel-price adjustment requests when their cost is greater than the published fuel-index price for the fuel that serves as the basis of the energy offers. FPA requests can be submitted at any time for any future hour of today and any hour of tomorrow. FPA requests are immediately processed, except in certain periods where the processing of FPAs for tomorrow is suspended while the Day-Ahead Energy Market is being cleared and while the unit plan for tomorrow is being generated and finalized. Processed FPAs are used to update the reference levels in the generator-mitigation schedule and to allow the participant to submit higher start-up and no-load cost offer values.
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How does eMarket accommodate new Regulation Market user roles?
eMarket has been revised to support new regulation user roles governing a participant’s ability to view and submit offers in the Regulation Market. The definition of these user roles required a regrouping of the eMarket displays and XML messages under a regulation umbrella, where all Regulation Market offers are submitted and viewed, provided the user is authorized by his role to use these displays and XML messages. These are the same changes that had been previously put in place to support the new Regulation Market, whose implementation had been deferred until March 31, 2015. See the questions below for more details.
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What are the new displays in eMarket?
Several new displays and corresponding XML messages are available in eMarket under both the Generation and Asset-Related Demand (ARD) tabs and under the new Regulation tab. The following sections describe these new displays.
Generation Displays
- The Schedule Offers Hourly Updates display allows the participant to view, submit, and modify hourly overrides for a generator’s start-up and no-load costs and the price/MW incremental energy offer pairs. This display also allows a participant to set the flags for “use start-up and no-load” and “use offer slope.” A participant with multifuel generator units can view and must submit the fuel-blend percentages associated with each of the financial offer parameters. The fuel-index names are shown on the display. Note that when submitting an hourly override of a schedule’s offers, all offer values and blends for the hour must be submitted. The values entered for an hour on this display supersede the same daily values submitted using the revised Schedule Offers Default display. This is the only display that can be used to submit offers during the real-time energy intraday reoffer period.
- The Schedule Times Hourly Updates display allows the participant to view, submit, and modify hourly overrides for a generator’s various notification and start-up times. Note that when submitting an hourly override of a schedule’s time parameters, all notification and start-up time values for the hour must be submitted. The values entered for an hour on this display supersede the same daily values submitted using the Schedule Detail Defaults display.
- The Ramp Rate Hourly Updates display allows the participant to view, submit, and modify hourly values for a generator’s ramp rate. The hourly ramp rate can be either a single ramp rate or a ramp-rate curve with up to 10 segments. The values entered for an hour on this display supersede both the daily ramp-rate curve submitted using the Ramp-Rate Default display, if one has been entered, and the daily single ramp rate submitted using the Unit Parameters Default display.
- The Fuel-Price Adjustments display allows the participant to view and submit one or more FPA requests for a selected unit and one of its fuels for a given market day. Only fossil fuel units and their fuels can be selected. When the range of hours spanned by an FPA submittal overlaps, the requested price of the last FPA entered has precedence over all the other previously entered prices. This is why all FPA submittals for the unit’s fuel on the selected day are listed in the order submitted. For each hour of the selected day, the display also shows which of the submitted FPAs sets the fuel price for that hour and selected fuel. The FPA also is used to derive the reference levels for that hour in the unit’s mitigation schedule. The status of each submitted FPA can be one of the following categories:
- Pending—This is the initial state of the FPA after it is first submitted, normally a transient state because FPAs are processed as soon as they are received. However, during two periods, the processing of FPAs for tomorrow is suspended, and the FPAs remain in the pending state, as follows:
- While the Day-Ahead Energy Market is being cleared after its closes and before the opening of the reoffer period
- When the unit-commitment plan for tomorrow is being finalized after the close of the reoffer period and before the opening of the real-time intraday reoffer period
The processing of FPAs suspended during these periods resumes automatically as soon as the time period elapses.
- Approved—This state means that the requested price was approved and used to update the mitigation reference levels. Participants can then proceed with updating their offers on the basis of the requested price for the fuel.
- Capped—This means that the requested price is above the FPA price limit the ISO’s internal market monitor has established for the fuel and that an increase in the fuel price equal to the FPA price limit has been approved. This capped price is shown on the display.
- Withdrawn—This means that one of the participant’s users has withdrawn the FPA request before it lapsed (i.e., before its end-hour passed). Withdrawing an FPA that overlaps other FPAs does not make the overlapped FPA hours active; they remain overlapped, and the effective fuel price for those hours is the fuel’s fuel-index price.
This display can also be used to upload and attach documents to previously submitted FPA requests. This allows participants to electronically submit the required documentation for FPA submittals to the internal market monitor. In addition, this display can be used to manage the documents previously uploaded and attached to an FPA submittal (i.e., to remove a document, download a document, etc.). This display has many more features, such as the audit trail of “who did what and when” with an FPA submittal, which is maintained and shown on the display. These are fully described in the eMarket Users Guide.
Asset Related Demand (ARD) Displays
- The ARD Schedule Offers Hourly Updates display allows the participant to view, submit, and modify hourly overrides for an asset’s price/MW incremental energy offer pairs and to set the “use offer slope” flag. Note that when submitting an hourly override of a schedule’s offers, all offer values for the hour must be submitted. The values entered for an hour on this display supersede the same daily values submitted using the revised ARD Schedule Offers Default display. This is the only display that can be used to submit ARD offers during the real-time energy intraday reoffer period.
- The ARD Ramp Rate Hourly Updates allows the participant to view, submit, and modify hourly values for an asset’s ramp rate. The hourly ramp rate can be either a single ramp rate or a ramp-rate curve with up to 10 segments. The values entered for an hour on this display supersede both the daily ramp-rate curve submitted using the ARD Ramp Rate Default display, if one has been entered, and the daily single ramp rate submitted using the ARD Parameters Default display.
Regulation Displays (under the new Regulation tab)
A new group of displays is available in eMarket. The regulation-related data fields have been moved from Generation displays to displays under the Regulation tab. New displays to support regulation bidding have also been added. New and updated displays under the Regulation tab are as follows:
- The Regulation Portfolio Manager display allows participants to manage regulation resource portfolios consisting of the regulation-capable generators.
- The Regulation Offers Default display allows participants to view, submit, and modify daily offers and shows the availability to participate in the Regulation Market, the regulation price requested, regulation high and low limits, and automatic response rate (ARR).
- The Regulation Hourly Updates display allows participants to view, submit, and modify hourly overrides of a resource’s regulation parameters for a specified market day. Hourly overrides of the physical parameters and the financial parameters are independent. That is, participants can submit overrides of the physical parameters (i.e., availability, limits, ARR) for some hours without submitting overrides of the regulation price—and vice versa. When a participant submits overrides of only physical parameters for some hours, the regulation price for these hours is the daily default value. A similar case would be when a participant submits an override of only the regulation price for some hours—the physical parameter values for the corresponding hours would be the daily default values.
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Have existing displays changed in eMarket?
Yes. Along with the new displays described above, the display names changed a bit to emphasize the correlation between the daily and the hourly update display pairs. Additionally, several significant changes have been made to the existing eMarket displays for Generation, ARD, and Regulation, as follows:
Generation Displays
- Unit Default Parameters (formerly known as the Unit Manager)—The start-up and no-load costs data fields were moved to the Schedule Offers Default display so that all financial parameters would be on the same display and the daily fuel-blend information could all be submitted on one screen. The data fields for regulation limits were moved to the Regulation Offers Default display to be collocated with all the other regulation offer data.
- Schedule Detail Defaults (formerly known as the Schedule Details)—The “use start-up no-load” and “use bid slope” flags were moved to the Schedule Offers Default display so that all financial-related parameters would be on the same display.
- Schedule Offers Default (formerly known as the Schedule Offers)—All the daily default financial parameters of the generator’s offer are now located on this display, including start-up and no-load costs, the “use start-up no-load” and “use bid slope” flags, and the incremental energy offers. For multifuel units, the display shows each of the fuel indices the generator is configured to use, along with cells for the fuel-blend percentages associated with each price/cost.
- Hourly Updates—Columns were added to allow the hourly override of the claim-10 and claim-30 daily parameters for claim-10- and claim-30-capable units. The other change on this display is the need to enter all parameter values for the hour if one parameter value needs to be entered for that hour, even if the values are copies of the daily defaults. Claim-10 and claim-30 values must be entered only for claim-10- and claim-30-capable units.
ARD Displays
- ARD Schedule Detail Defaults (formerly known as the ARD Schedule Details)—The “use bid slope” flag was moved to the Schedule Offers Default display so that all financial-related parameters would be on the same display.
- ARD Schedule Offers Default (formerly known as the ARD Schedule Offers)—All the daily default financial parameters of the asset’s offer are now located on this display (i.e., “use bid slope” flag and incremental energy offers).
- ARD Hourly Updates—Columns were added to allow the hourly override of the claim-10 and claim-30 daily parameters for claim-10- and claim-30-capable assets. The other change on this display is that all parameter values for an hour must be entered if one parameter value must be entered for that hour, even if the values are copies of the daily defaults. Claim-10 and claim-30 values must be entered only for claim-10- and claim-30-capable assets.
Regulation Displays
- Regulation Offers Daily Default (formerly known as the Regulation Offers)—The daily default regulation high and low limits for every regulation resource in the user’s portfolio are now shown on the display and can be entered and modified using this display, along with the resource’s daily default regulation price offer, automatic response rate, and regulation availability flag.
- Regulation Hourly Updates—Columns were added to provide participants with the capability to view, submit, and modify hourly overrides of the resource’s regulation price and automatic response rate. This is the only display that can be used to submit changes to a resource’s regulation price during the Reserve Market intraday reoffer period; only the regulation price for future hours of the operating day can be changed.
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What eMarket XML changes relate to Energy Market Offer Flexibility?
Similar to the changes in eMarket displays are corresponding changes to eMarket web services (automatic data feeds). These new services include being able to submit and receive an array of information on the various new hourly updates and fuel-price adjustment requests. Several new XML information reports have been added, which users can request using the eMarket XML download displays.
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What are the changes to the eMarket submittal deadlines?
The following submittal deadlines have changed or been established in eMarket as part of the Energy Market Offer Flexibility project:
Energy Market submittal deadlines:
- Day-Ahead Energy Market for two days from now and beyond—The market now opens at 6:30 p.m. rather than 5:00 p.m. and closes at 11:59 p.m. rather than 10:00 p.m. Eastern time each day.
- Day-Ahead Energy Market for tomorrow and beyond—No change; the market opens at 00:00 (midnight) and closes at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time each day.
- Reoffer period open and close hours—No change; the period opens when the day-ahead market results are approved but no later than 1:30 p.m. and closes at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time.
- Real-time intraday reoffer period open and close hours—The real-time intraday reoffer period opens at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time the day before the operating day and closes at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time of the operating day. During this period, hourly updates of energy offers for future hours of the operating day can be submitted. Offer updates for the next hour can be submitted up to 30 minutes before the beginning of the hour. Therefore, the following deadlines apply:
- After 11:30 p.m. the day before the operating day, hourly updates for the first hour of the operating day can no longer be submitted.
- After 10:30 p.m. of the operating day, hourly updates for the operating day can no longer be submitted, thereby closing the period at 10:30 p.m.
During the real-time intraday reoffer period, only hourly updates of financial energy offers can be submitted (i.e., changes to the incremental energy offers/bids [price/MW pairs]) and, under strict rules, changes to generator’s start-up and no-load costs.
Regulation Market submittal deadlines (note further details and changes to the deadlines in the questions below):
- For two days from now and beyond—Regulation offers and daily and hourly updates can be submitted between 6:30 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. Eastern time every day, for the day after tomorrow and up to nine days in the future.
- For tomorrow and beyond—Regulation offers and daily and hourly updates can be submitted between 00:00 (midnight) and 2:00 p.m. Eastern time every day, for tomorrow and up to 10 days in the future.
- Intraday reoffer period—The Regulation Market intraday reoffer period opens at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time the day before the operating day and closes at 10:30 p.m. of the operating day. During this period, hourly updates of only the regulation requested price for future hours of the operating day can be submitted. Updates to the offer for the next hour can be submitted up to 30 minutes before the start of the hour, thereby closing the period at 10:30 p.m.
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What are the current intraday reoffer submittal deadlines?
Regulation Market intraday reoffers can be submitted up to 5 minutes before the start of the hour, as opposed to one-half hour before the start of the hour. For example, after 11:55 p.m. the day before the operating day, hourly updates for the first hour of the operating day can no longer be submitted.
The Regulation Market intraday reoffer period opens at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time the day before the operating day and closes at 10:55 p.m. of the operating day. Updates to the offer for the next hour can be submitted up to 30 minutes before the start of the hour, thereby closing the period at 10:55 p.m. During the Regulation Market intraday reoffer period, lead participants of generating units can submit hourly updates for regulation financial offer parameters only (i.e., regulation service price, regulation intertemporal opportunity (ITO) capacity cost, and regulation other capacity cost); whereas lead participants of alternative technology regulation resources (ATRRs) can submit hourly updates for both regulation financial and physical parameters (i.e., availability for regulation, automatic ramp rate, and regulation high and low limits).
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Where can someone read about the tariff changes ISO New England implemented in compliance with FERC Order 755?
The Regulation Market is described in Section III.14 of Market Rule 1. For more details, please refer to the most recent ISO filing describing the changes.
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When did the regulation enhancements that are part of the Alternative Technology and Regulation Market project go live?
The Regulation Market enhancements were deployed on the night of March 30, 2015, with a first effective period on March 31, 2015.
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How did the upload and download file formats change?
The regulation upload/download file formats have been revised to reflect the Regulation Market enhancements. For more details, please refer to the revised eMarket Data Exchange Specification v10.
Customers must update the Web Service Definition files (WSDL and XSD) for the client applications to interface with eMarket using web services. Sample programs in C++ and Java that illustrate the use of the new web services are posted on the Uploads and Downloads page. (eMKT_client_sample_programs_v4_ATRM.zip).
What changed in the eMarket graphical user interface?
The questions below note some of the changes to the regulation displays and regulation portfolios. The eMarket Users Guide contains a full description of the changes that were made to eMarket to support the Regulation Market enhancements.
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Did the regulation portfolios change? Where can a user manage the portfolios for alternative technology regulation resources (ATRRs)?
The management of the portfolios for lead participants of generating units did not change. Lead participants of alternative technology regulation resources (ATRRs) will be able to add their ATRRs to their existing or new regulation portfolios.
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How did the regulation offers and corresponding regulation displays change?
As part of the redesigned Regulation Market, Reg Price is replaced with three new components for lead participants of regulation resources to recover their costs:
- Reg Cap ITO Cost—The price requested to cover the regulation intertemporal opportunity capacity cost ($/megawatt-hour [MWh]) of the resource.
- Reg Cap Offer Other—The price requested to cover all other regulation capacity costs ($/MWh) of the resource.
- Reg Serv Price—The price requested to cover the regulation service cost ($/MWh) of the resource.
Additionally, the displays have the following new columns:
- Dispatch Method—The dispatch methodology of the regulating resource. The possible types are as follows:
- CONT—for continuous; not energy neutral (for traditional thermal units, but can apply to ATRRs)
- ENC—for energy neutral continuous (applicable to ATRRs only)
- ENT—for energy neutral trinary (applicable to ATRRs only)
- Derate Factor—This is a value between 0 and 1 set by the ISO and calculated on the basis of historical performance. This factor provides an estimate of the resource’s future capability to respond to an automatic generation control (AGC) setpoint.
- Derate Comment—A comment entered by the ISO the last time the derate factor value was changed.
- Service Factor—A factor set by the ISO and calculated on the basis of historical performance. This factor provides an estimate of the resource’s regulation service as a multiple of capacity.
- Service Comment—A comment entered by the ISO New England the last time the service factor value was changed.
- Exclude Flag—When checked, it indicates that the ISO excluded the resource from the Regulation Market
- Exclude Comment—A comment entered by the ISO the last time the value of the “exclude” flag was changed.
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What data validation rules are applied in eMarket?
The following data validation rules are enforced in eMarket:
- Reg Floor ≤ Reg Low < Reg High ≤ Reg Ceil.
For ATRRs, the regulation limits can be negative. For generating units, the regulation limits must be positive.
- Total regulation capacity offer price (Reg PriceCap ITO Cost + Reg Cap Offer Other) for an hour cannot exceed $100.00 and must be greater than the regulation floor price determined by the ISO.
- Regulation service offer price (Reg Serv Price) for an hour cannot exceed $10.00 and must be greater than the regulation floor price determined by the ISO.
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