October 28, 2020

Get ready to fall back to Eastern Standard Time

New England will return to Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Sunday, November 1, when at 2:00 a.m., clocks must be set back one hour to 1:00 a.m. Each of the ISO’s market applications is unique and will function differently during this transition. Here are the things market participants need to know to prepare.

1. Bids and offers that use upload and downloads for the eMarket application follows ISO 8601 Date and Time format for XML submittals. This is explained in section 3.1.2 of the eMarket Data Exchange Specification document posted on the ISO website.

The transition will cover 2020-11-01T00:00:00–04:00 through 2020-11-01T23:00:00–05:00. For example: the time (or hour) is represented in the format below. Note that the DateTime format includes the time zone indicator and the example shows time in Eastern Standard Time.

time=”2020-11-01T00:00:00-04:00″

time=”2020-11-01T01:00:00-04:00″

time=”2020-11-01T01:00:00-05:00″ (extra hour)

time=”2020-11-01T02:00:00-05:00″

—

time=”2020-11-01T22:00:00-05:00″

time=”2020-11-01T23:00:00-05:00″

2. Asset telemetry, hourly-resource availability upload/downloads via DRMUI application must submit the extra hour as given below.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) time format upload/download

The transition will cover 2020-11-01T00:00:00–04:00 through 2020-11-01T23:00:00–05:00. For example:

2020-11-01T04:00:00Z (first five-minute interval)
….
2020-11-01T05:00:00Z
….
2020-11-01T06:00:00Z
….
2020-11-01T07:00:00Z
….
2020-11-01T03:55:00Z
….
2020-11-01T04:55:00Z (last five-minute interval of the day)

Eastern Standard Time for upload/download

The transition will cover 2020-11-01, 00:00:00–04:00 through 2020-11-01, 23:55:00–05:00. For example:

2020-11-01 00:00:00–04:00 (first five-minute interval) (starts with Easters Daylight Time with 4 hours offset)
….
2020-11-01 01:05:00–04:00
….
2020-11-01 01:50:00–04:00
….
2020-11-01 01:55:00–04:00
….
2020-11-01 01:00:00–05:00 (fall back by an hour and goes to Easter Standard Time with 5 hours offset)
….
2020-11-01 01:05:00–05:00
….
2020-11-01 01:10:00–05:00
….
2020-11-01 02:00:00–05:00
….
2020-11-01 03:00:00–05:00
….
2020-11-01 04:00:00–05:00
….
2020-11-01 05:00:00–05:00
….
….
….
2020-11-01 23:55:00–05:00 (last interval for the day)

3. Internal bilateral transactions and any meter readings that use uploads and downloads for the SMS application must have the extra hour represented as 2* (that is, “2” followed by an asterisk). The Contract Upload File Formats, the Internal Bilateral Download, and the SMD Metering Upload File Format documents located on the ISO New England website contain required formatting information.

4. MIS reports will present the extra hour as 02X.

5. Lastly, NEXTT (Formerly EES) and OATI’s eTag system handle the time change differently. NEXTT UI displays date/time in America/New_York timezone, while OATI eTag allows user to set Timezone (for example, EDT, or EST). NEXTT displays the extra hour automatically in the market user interface, labeled as “02X”. NEXTT file upload/download and programmatic interface use GMT datetime, which is not subject any EDT/EST change. Examples of a NEXXT transaction is shown below. In general, eTags should be created in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and cover 25 hours (11/01/2020 00:00 – 11/02/2020 01:00). However, if the transaction begins after the time change has occurred, create the eTag in EST and create the schedule in the normal manner.

File upload/programmatic interface: NEXTT schema uses standard GMT date time, no special DST/EST expression (like repeating hour).

…

<DA_DETAIL>

<DA_TRANSACTION_TYPE>UPTO CONGESTION</DA_TRANSACTION_TYPE>

<UP_TO_CONGESTION_LOCATION_NAME>.Z.NEMASSBOST</UP_TO_CONGESTION_LOCATION_NAME>

<DA_INTERVALS>

<DA_INTERVAL>

<INTERVAL_BEGIN>2020-11-01T04:00:00Z</INTERVAL_BEGIN>

<INTERVAL_END>2020–11–01T05:00:00Z</INTERVAL_END>

<BID_MW>50</BID_MW>

<BID_PRICE>2.45</BID_PRICE>

</DA_INTERVAL>

<DA_INTERVAL>

<INTERVAL_BEGIN>2020–11–01T05:00:00Z</INTERVAL_BEGIN>

<INTERVAL_END>2020–11–01T06:00:00Z</INTERVAL_END>

<BID_MW>60</BID_MW>

<BID_PRICE>3.45</BID_PRICE>

</DA_INTERVAL>

<DA_INTERVAL>

<INTERVAL_BEGIN>2020-11–01T06:00:00Z</INTERVAL_BEGIN>

<INTERVAL_END>2020-11–01T07:00:00Z</INTERVAL_END>

<BID_MW>60</BID_MW>

<BID_PRICE>3.45</BID_PRICE>

</DA_INTERVAL>

…

</DA_INTERVALS>

</DA_DETAIL>

<RT_DETAIL>

<RT_TRANSACTION_TYPE>SELF SCHEDULED</RT_TRANSACTION_TYPE>

<RT_INTERVALS>

<RT_INTERVAL>

<INTERVAL_BEGIN>2020–11–01T04:00:00Z</INTERVAL_BEGIN>

<INTERVAL_END>2020–11–01T05:00:00Z</INTERVAL_END>

<BID_MW>100</BID_MW>

<BID_PRICE xsi:nil=“true”/>

</RT_INTERVAL>

<RT_INTERVAL>

<INTERVAL_BEGIN>2020–11–01T05:00:00Z</INTERVAL_BEGIN>

<INTERVAL_END>2020–11–01T06:00:00Z</INTERVAL_END>

<BID_MW>110</BID_MW>

<BID_PRICE xsi:nil=“true”/>

</RT_INTERVAL>

<RT_INTERVAL>

<INTERVAL_BEGIN>2020-11–01T06:00:00Z</INTERVAL_BEGIN>

<INTERVAL_END>2020-11–01T07:00:00Z</INTERVAL_END>

<BID_MW>110</BID_MW>

<BID_PRICE xsi:nil=“true”/>

</RT_INTERVAL>

</RT_INTERVALS>

…

</RT_DETAIL>

</TRANSACTION>

2. NEXTT UI: date hours are displayed in America/New_York timezone (may different from customer local timezone). The repeat hour is labeled as 02X:

Additional information and NEXTT (Formerly EES) file format examples are found in the Upload and Download File Format Protocols document on the ISO New England website. All market participants are encouraged to test their upload files for November 1, 2020, in the SMD Sandbox.

If you have questions on the information above, contact Participants Support and Solutions at 413-540-4220 or AskISO@iso-ne.com.