Ammedments

Amendments to the

“MONTHLY ELECTRICITY IMPORT AND EXPORT SURVEY”

OMB NUMBER 1901-0296

06-24-2010

Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability

U.S. Department of Energy

Washington, D.C. 20585

Action Requested: The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) resubmits the previously approved “Monthly Electricity Import and Export Survey” for OMB review.

Reason for Resubmission: Resubmission is prompted mainly by the modifications introduced into two schedules reported by “Purchasing and Selling Entities” to reflect the current electricity market’s business structure.

Background Information: With federal, state and provincial mandates for competition in the electricity markets, the electric power industry has responded with a functional separation and the introduction of new market participants.

The Electric Power Division of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which is responsible for the collection and processing of the Monthly Import and Export Survey data on behalf of OE, conducted field tests of the survey form that was approved by the OMB. The purpose of the field tests was to ensure that the electric power industry records could provide the information requested in the survey form.

The field test have revealed that, due to the separation of functions that took place in many states, some of the bundled cost-of-service power providers could separate the electricity transmission function from other power market services. Because this separation was not foreseen in the original survey form only a singe data collection element was reserved for bundled services. Our field test findings have caused us to redesign and increase the import-export data collection elements for bundled service providers.

Burden Hours: A new internet data collection software system is under development for the Monthly Import and Export Report. The software system includes all the changes to the original form listed below. EIA created test cases for each type of respondent (purchasing and selling entity, transmission system operator, transmission owner, and U.S. treaty entity) that will be filing the Monthly Import and Export Report. EIA used the test cases to measure the length of time it would take for each respondent type to submit the survey data. Our tests reveal that the changes made to the form (see below) will not increase respondent burden hours, and our initial 7.8 hours average annual burden per respondent remains to be a good faith estimate.

List of Amendments to the Original Form: Below is a comprehensive list of enhancements introduced into the original Monthly Import and Export Survey report.

1. Change the report title to “Monthly Electricity Import and Export Report.” (Currently the title of the report is “Monthly Electricity Imports and Exports Report.”)

2. Change the language of the “Purpose” section of the report to eliminate references to the old Code of Federal Regulations.

3. Change the language of the “Required Respondents” section of the report to increase clarity. Please note that the target group of respondents does not change with this modification.

4. Change to the Identification Information Section of the report involves addition of a “Country” field to the address of each contact information subsection. Because some of the respondents are holders of export authorizations and or presidential permit holders, the lack of this field made the address sections incomplete.

5. Change the “Bundled” “Cost-of-Service Transactions” section for both import and export data (Schedules 2A and 2B). The first submitted form had only the revenue (expense) dollars for bundled services. The new “Imports (Exports)” MWh column should have been included in the initial OMB survey form submission, but was omitted. For respondents that are active in markets where separation of functions are mandated two new columns were introduced to capture the associated costs: “Energy and Ancillary U.S. Side” service ($), and “Transmission U.S. Side” service ($). Finally, a “Completely Bundled” service ($) column is added to distinguish vertically integrated markets from markets with separation of functions. The “Total” ($) column will either show the sum of “Energy and Ancillary” service ($) plus “Transmission” service ($), or the value of “Completely Bundled” service ($).

These changes to the Bundled Cost-of-Service Transactions section are highlighted in Schedules 2A and 2B of the resubmitted form for ease of review. EIA does not consider this change to cause an increase in reporting burden to respondents based on comments received last year from respondents that their record keeping practices were consistent with these reporting categories. Reporting the information by these sub-categories will result in less follow up questions to respondents and more efficient validation of the reported data.

6. Types of transmission lines are clarified in Schedule 4. Most transmission line interfaces permit either alternating current or direct current modes, with one exception in Texas, which is capable of electricity transmission in both modes. In order to capture these distinctions the form was changed to allow the respondent to choose the type of transmission interface. Since all respondents, except for one, will choose either one or the other form of interface, this change is considered an enhancement for form clarification. Because of space limitations, only TSIN Interface Name: A is used for illustrative purpose. A respondent filing a paper form with more than one TSIN (TSIN Interface Name: B, etc.) interface will provide Schedule 4 information on additional paper copies of the schedule.

7. Delete two rows from Schedule 5A and 5B. The “Utility Name” and “EIA Utility ID” rows already appear in the schedule headings and were found to be redundant.

8. Modify the “Legend” of response choices for Schedule 5A and 5B. For certain survey elements a limited number of choices were offered to the respondent. The list of choices was expanded for the following elements: Voltage Type, Status of Existing Transmission Line (old name Status of Transmission Facilities).

9. Change “Type of Organization (Owner)” element name to “Line Ownership Type” in schedules 5A and 5B.

10. Add a new legend for “Line Ownership Type choices” for schedules 5A and 5B.

Amendments to the Form Instructions: Instructions for filing the Monthly Import and Export Report have been changed extensively to provide better guidance to complete the survey form. Schedule 2A and 2B instructions have been updated to reflect the changes to the “Bundled” Cost-of-Service Transactions section of the form.

Amendment to the

2009 Monthly Electricity Import and Export Report

Supporting Statement

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