Review of Bilateral Contracting in RTO-Run Markets
American Public Power Association
Completed May 2008
As part of APPA’s Electric Markets Reform Initiative, Synapse was asked to investigate whether or not today’s RTOs have produced a healthy environment for managing electricity procurement costs through bilateral contracting. Synapse found that while bilateral contracts are widely recognized as crucial to the functioning of truly competitive electricity markets, RTOs have failed to create an environment conducive to the vigorous, competitive, long-term bilateral contracting that would provide the most benefits to consumers.