How should we name balancing authorities in USA? Feedback needed! 🙏

[madsnedergaard]

I'd like to get some feedback on how people would prefer the balancing authorities in US to be named.

Currently we're going with the full title on the app (e.g. California Independent System Operator) instead of the shorter California ISO (what they use on their own website) or even shorter CAISO.

Same with ERCOT vs Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and so on.

Where we need your help

Since the internal team is either European or deeply involved in the energy sector, we're lacking an understanding of how everyday citizens in the US uses these names. How does the media use the names?

The current titles are often too long to be displayed in the app, so it would be nice if we could generally use the shorter names and maybe add the full title in a tooltip - but we don't want to make that move before hearing from you :)

[brandongalbraith]

US human here. In public media, these BAs are referenced by their acronyms (CAISO, ERCOT, MISO, PJM etc). In some cases, there is no ISO referenced (Florida comes to mind), and ElectrictyMap can refer to the investor owned utility or the municipal coop name (TECO, FPL, JEA, etc).

so it would be nice if we could generally use the shorter names and maybe add the full title in a tooltip

This is a great idea. 👍 💯

[madsnedergaard]

Thanks @brandongalbraith, that's very helpful 🙏

[fhteagle]

Short abbreviation + tooltip for full BA name makes sense to me as well. In the specific case of the BA for my location, WAPA -> Western Area Power Administration is probably good enough. The geopgraphical and region boundaries within WAPA are kind of a mess anyway. So trying to point at US-NW-WACM to match the EIA reporting region is either necessary or overkill, depending on how you look at it.

[madsnedergaard]

Thanks for the feedback @fhteagle.

To you, @brandongalbraith and anyone else: We have started working on this and created this Sheet for finding a new name for each zone. We would love to get some suggestions, feedback, etc. on the names, especially the ones still missing a new name: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YigaM8G5GwZX52TTzFoZZmzSCrNgsw948uTtgsnTITQ/edit?usp=sharing

[fhteagle]

Looked through the list quickly. Noticed a few things:

• Sometimes you have "Public Utility District" spelled out, sometimes it's abbreviated "PUD". Consider using partial abbreviation "Pub Util Dist".
• Sometimes the last letters are repeated in ( ) at end, such as GWA, which is probably superfluous

Other than that, looks fine to my eye.

[brandongalbraith]

Looks good to me :+1: I would drop the hyphens, but would disagree about partial abbreviations as @fhteagle mentioned if tooltips or something similar will be used to surface the full name vs the friendly name default displayed.

[madsnedergaard]

Thanks both! Just to make sure it's clear, it's column D that is the new, simplified name :) So we are already planning on droppoing PUD.

I would drop the hyphens

Do you mean the ones used in the new name, like "Duke Energy - Progress East"?

[brandongalbraith]

it's column D that is the new, simplified name :)

👍

Do you mean the ones used in the new name, like "Duke Energy - Progress East"?

Correct!

Example: Duke Energy Progress East

But of course if this differs significantly from your teams thoughts on presentation, feel free to disregard this suggestion. It is not strongly held :)

[fhteagle]

What I get for looking at it on mobile, did not even see column D lol

Agreed that the hyphens are probably not necessary. "WAPA Rocky Mountain" works for me.