The Comprehensive Market Analysis and Reporting System (CMARS), which has been developed, updated and built upon in-house by CMEEC staff for decades, is a proprietary platform that streamlines the retrieval, tracking and analysis of the large volume of market and system data from the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE) and other market, weather and fuel price data sources. All iterations of CMARS, including the original CMARS, CMARS SMD and CMARS3, have sought to provide accurate, consistent and reproducible data and analysis (“one version of the truth”).
CMARS SMD is available to qualifying new customers. Those interested in learning more about the platform can find details below and are encouraged to contact CMEEC’s BI Department at bi@cmeec.org with questions or to schedule a consultation.
.
CMARS SMD: Key Features
.ISO-NE Data Retrieval
CMARS SMD provides continuous retrieval of data made available by ISO-NE. This data includes the market and system data made publicly available on ISO-NE’s websites and ISO-NE’s proprietary Market Information Server (MIS) reports, and derived product data, made available to its market participants through the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) mechanism and web services in GZ, CSV, XML and JSON formats. This data flow can exceed 300,000 records per day.
.
ISO-NE Settlement Tracking
CMARS SMD eliminates the complications associated with handling multiple versions of files, enabling users to select between the “latest” version, the “invoice” version or “all” versions to facilitate the tracking of ISO-NE settlement issues. By providing users with a transparent and maintenance-free platform for the normalized viewing, querying and archiving of its data over time, CMARS SMD eliminates the problems associated with the continual changes to ISO-NE data formatting and availability.
.
Secure Online Access
CMARS SMD is maintained as a live, web-based platform, requiring no customer hardware, software, development, maintenance or archiving investment. Users can access the data through secured access to its website, where it can be sorted, queried, extracted and monitored within minutes of availability on ISO-NE web services..
Additional Services
CMARS SMD collects data from a wide range of relevant sources beyond ISO-NE, including Energy Futures and settlement prices for Natural Gas (NG) and Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) from ICE and NYMEX, weather forecasts from a variety of sources and regional load data from CONVEX. By integrating these diverse data streams, CMARS SMD can offer additional services such as:- Forward price reporting;
- Bilateral transaction logging and automated dispatch;
- Demand, increment and decrement bidding development;
- Market generation data analysis;
- Meter data loading, reporting and submission to ISO-NE;
- Mark-to-market valuation;
- A broad range of other summary and analytical reporting tools.
.
CMARS, CMARS SMD and CMARS 3: A History
.| 1999 | ISO-NE Action: After the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Orders No. 888 and 889 to promote wholesale electric energy competition through open-access, non-discriminatory transmission services, the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE) established regional wholesale energy markets. |
| CMEEC Response: Recognizing the volume and importance of the data that these markets would generate, CMEEC staff began developing a tool to manage, analyze and integrate this data across all CMEEC functions. Those efforts resulted in CMARS, an application designed to support daily operations and enable informed and strategic decision-making through data-driven interpretation and analysis. CMARS was initially developed for internal use and later marketed to fellow public power companies on a limited basis. |
|
| 2003 | ISO-NE Action: In 2003, ISO-NE redesigned its wholesale energy markets to reflect locational pricing, day-ahead markets and real-time markets to more accurately capture the cost of wholesale power and to provide clearer economic signals for infrastructure investment. ISO-NE’s new framework for its wholesale energy markets is referred to as the Standard Market Design (SMD). |
| CMEEC Response: The same year, CMEEC staff adapted CMARS to handle the greatly increased volume of data that became available upon ISO-NE’s launch of its new SMD framework. The updated version of CMARS that accounts for location-based pricing, the day-ahead market and the real-time market became known as CMARS SMD. CMARS SMD is currently used by CMEEC, our Members, our CMARS partners and other public power companies. |
|
| 2010 | CMEEC Action: In 2010, CMEEC staff launch CMARS3, an internal business intelligence and reporting platform that integrates CMEEC’s budgeting, billing, metering and forecasting information systems with the CMARS framework. CMARS3 enables users to group, organize, slice, dice, filter and reorganize data as desired at the time of viewing, which expands the tools available to users beyond predefined reports, graphs and dashboards. The platform brings together monthly aggregated cost allocations from financial (accounting) and technical (market) data sources, allowing for complete, all-in energy cost views on a straight dollar, or dollar per MWh, basis. Today, CMEEC uses CMARS SMD and CMARS3 to integrate data across all CMEEC functions, including data from ISO-NE power markets, CMEEC’s general ledger, CMEEC’s budget and select behind-the-meter assets. This integration of data enables streamlined billing through the automated allocation of hourly Member loads (Rate 9) and special contract customers’ costs; enhanced user access to budget, forecast, and actual costs across all levels of detail; calculation of “avoided costs” for behind-the-meter generation; and accurate data for load forecasting. |
|---|
Learn More
To learn more about our CMARS SMD platform or to schedule a consultation, please email bi@cmeec.org.