ISO-NE earns unqualified audit report on market administration and settlements system

ISO New England recently completed the 2023 System and Organization Controls (SOC 1) engagement, which assessed the controls surrounding the market administration and settlements system for administering the region’s wholesale electricity markets. 

The report, issued on November 15, 2023, covered the period of October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023. A team from KPMG LLP examined the ISO’s controls in two phases, reviewing 59 control objectives and testing over 220 control activities.

For the 19th year in a row, the ISO earned an “unqualified opinion” from the independent auditor.

Why audit?

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a federal law governing accounting practices at public companies, requires many of New England’s market participants to annually verify their internal controls over financial statement reporting. Since the ISO’s market administration and settlements system affects market participants’ financial statements, the market participants need reasonable assurance that the system is designed and implemented to accurately process relevant transactions for financial statement reporting throughout the period.

The SOC 1 engagement was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants to give reasonable assurance to user entities that the service organizations they rely on, such as ISO New England, have designed and implemented adequate control processes. Market participants and their independent auditors can use this third-party assessment of the ISO’s market administration and settlements system when evaluating their own internal controls for financial statement reporting.