PJM and Monitoring Analytics, its Independent Market Monitor, have agreed on a deal that will extend the Monitor’s contract through 2025 and require the Monitor to submit to an annual independent audit. The agreement was filed for FERC approval Friday (ER18-2402).

In a concurrent filing, the parties also agreed the Monitor will provide to PJM more of the data market participants submit into MIRA, the Monitor’s online database, so participants don’t have to send the data to both the RTO and the Monitor. The additional sharing includes data used in generators’ fuel-cost policies. The filing also requires both parties to inform the other of changes to their systems (ER18-2403).

The new audit requirement “provides for a review intended to ensure that the services being provided to PJM by Monitoring Analytics are being completed consistent with the systems and controls in place for the provision of those services, similar to the reviews PJM conducts of its own systems and controls,” the RTO said in the filing.

The Monitor’s current contract runs through 2019, and stakeholders — particularly state regulators and consumer representatives — have been urging the parties to come to agreement early. (See “IMM Support,” Advocates Push PJM Board for Explanations at Annual Meeting.)

The early agreement also avoids some of the drama of the previous contract, which began in September 2013. As the initial six-year contract, which went into effect on June 30, 2008, neared its expiration, PJM’s Board of Managers announced plans in March 2013 to issue a request for proposals. The Organization of PJM States Inc. joined industrial consumers and cooperatives in protesting the decision, and the parties eventually agreed to an extension. By PJM’s annual meeting in October, a potential crisis had passed. (See Board, OPSI Bury the Hatchet over Monitor Contract.)

— Rory D. Sweeney