Grid Monitor
Providing Easier Access to ERCOT Regulatory Information

Electric power is a highly regulated industry in the United States. The majority of all consumers in the country receive their utility services regulated at the federal, state, and local levels. These governing bodies at the federal and state levels determine the prices they charge, the terms of service, their budgets, and other services that affect consumers, professionals, and market participants. As tighter regulations make the information flow in this sector highly fragmented, keeping up with the regulatory information management is an uphill task for many market participants. Addressing this challenge is Grid Monitor, a Software as a Service company. The company offers an AI-powered information management tool called Grid Monitor for ERCOT that provides easier access to regulatory information for both professionals and participants at every level. The tool collects, organizes, and continuously tracks a company’s ERCOT regulatory requirements. As the platform acts as a central repository of filings, agendas, curated news, and reporting across all three regulatory venues, ERCOT, PUCT, and the TX state legislature, the information needs of market participants are well served.

Grid Monitor was founded to solve the information needs and productivity challenges of companies involved in power generation, transmission, and distribution. They understood that many companies working in the energy sector waste a significant amount of time keeping track of crucial regulatory information. For example, frequent public meetings and conferences are a frequent feature of this industry and companies need access to the reports, agendas, and news from such events.

Typically, ERCOT regulatory professionals must visit multiple websites and events to access this information. Grid Monitor automates the process of collecting, organizing, and updating regulatory filings and brings all the information into a single cloud-based interface. This allows professionals, teams, and associations to access the required information instantly, saving a significant amount of time.

“Experts in energy regulation got together with experts in enterprise software infrastructure to develop this platform,” said Jim Curtin, CPO of Grid Monitor. The company provides access to 80 percent of the regulatory information its clients need, which enables them to gain a competitive advantage. Combining this information with insights from lobbyists, consultants, lawyers, and industry experts -- decision-makers can make informed decisions with less effort. In essence, the stakeholders of a company can access all the regulatory information, through this platform, they need to make critical business decisions.

As Grid Monitor provides features aimed at serving the common information needs of market participants, it lowers their costs and increases their productivity. The product comes with information, including filings, parties, streaming public meetings, reports, news, newsletters, and social feeds. Professionals can view all the filings, video feeds, news, and events that correspond to a regulatory agenda using a feature called Smart Agenda. Additionally, the platform employs a file tracker feature called Smart Follow, which enables users to set a flag on any filing and follow the latest activity associated with a specific control number. Finally, the application comes with simple and easy-to-use features to help users find a docket or topic of interest. Such unique features help users save time and improve their outcomes significantly.

Many large utility companies find these unique features extremely beneficial, and they report considerable improvements in productivity by leveraging them. The underlying technology that powers this is AI-based and the company leverages AI extensively to bring about new capabilities that augment the user experience.

Moving ahead, Grid Monitor plans to utilize its technical capabilities to deal with regulatory issues including the challenges of smart cities and clean energy. In the next few months, Grid Monitor is taking part in three different events, which will enable them to take the platform to new markets.