USEA has been working with USAID to develop capacity-building activities to support USAID partner countries efforts to incorporate non-conventional renewable energy (NCRE) onto their grids while maintaining or improving system reliability and accommodating expected growth in demand. These capacity-building efforts include organize a series of webinars presented by independent market monitors throughout the U.S. as well as internationally.

These webinars seek to improve knowledge in the wholesale electricity market sector and among Colombian government officials who work with the sector about the role of the independent market monitor, different ways of overseeing the market in the U.S. and other countries, and to share some ideas about best practices in this area. This effort is funded by the USAID Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI).

The Independent Market Monitor (IMM) is an organization or individual retained by an Independent System Operator (ISO), the electricity regulator, or another agency to impartially implement Market Monitoring and Mitigation (MMM) business practices. The IMM may report directly to the ISO’s Board of Directors, or to regulators or to other instances and monitors activities of Market Participants and Local Balancing Authorities without interference from the ISO or state regulatory agencies.

To guarantee a properly functioning wholesale market, some degree of oversight is needed to: 1) detect attempts to exercise market power and fraudulent behavior, 2) monitor market performance, 3) identify market design imperfections, 4) supervise efforts to prevent transmission and generation blackouts, and 5) monitor market activities and transactions.