RALEIGH, N.C. — Some of the attendees had drifted away by the final session of last week’s annual meeting when OPSI and PJM publicly celebrated the renewal of PJM’s contract with Monitoring Analytics.

“We could have had a very different situation up here” had the contract not been renewed, said Michigan Public Service Commissioner Greg White.

“We would have had better attendance,” joked Maryland Public Service Commissioner Lawrence Brenner, chairman of OPSI’s Market Monitoring Committee.

In March, the Organization of PJM States Inc. (OPSI) joined industrial consumers and cooperatives in protesting the PJM Board of Managers’ plan to issue a request for proposals for monitoring services. OPSI, which represents state regulators in the PJM footprint, said the board’s proposed RFP contained language that could undermine the independence of the monitoring function. Other protestors expressed concern that PJM would suffer a loss of institutional knowledge if it replaced Monitoring Analytics.

But all was seemingly forgiven last week as PJM Board Chairman Howard Schneider and Jean Kinsey, head of the board’s competitive markets committee, shared the dais with Monitoring Analytics President Joe Bowring and several OPSI board members in a panel discussion that closed the two-day conference.

Schneider said that itself marked progress: In past years, no board members had been on the panel for the Market Monitor Advisory Committee meeting. “We hope this is a harbinger of things to come in the future,” Schneider said. “Not only do you need to get Dr. Bowring’s view of how things are going, you also need PJM’s view.”

The rapprochement was made possible when the board dropped plans to solicit competing bids and announced in April that it was negotiating a new contract with Monitoring Analytics.

That did not end tensions with OPSI, however. In July, Brenner sent a letter to the board complaining that the state regulators had not been consulted in the drafting of the new contract. (See PJM, Monitoring Analytics Sign New Contract)  Brenner said the board’s action ignored a 2008 order in which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authorized OPSI to provide advice to the commission and PJM regarding market monitoring issues.

OPSI later asked FERC to amend the contract to include clarifications — included in a transmittal letter — regarding the balance between board oversight and the monitor’s independence.

The commission rejected OPSI’s request in a Sept. 27 order, but said it expected “that PJM and the [Independent Market Monitor], having made commitments in the transmittal letter, will abide by them.”

That was sufficient, Brenner said last week. “All’s well that ends well.”

Kinsey said the contract was “much improved” over the original because it clarified the Board of Managers’ oversight of the monitor, including regular performance reviews. The pact runs through the end of 2019.

While all expressed relief at the resolution of the contract dispute, there was no mistaking the underlying tensions that remain.

Both Bowring and Schneider are strong-willed personalities and can be blunt when they disagree.

When Brenner said he was happy to be able to call Bowring the “current and future market monitor,” Schneider interjected — “Current and future king” — with a chuckle.

“He has managed to annoy just about everybody in this room,” Robert Hanna, president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, said of Bowring. “To me that’s a very good sign. He’s not in the tank for anybody. He does it in a principled way and he lets you know the basis.”

Schneider also tweaked Brenner gently. The chairman observed that PJM’s stakeholder process “seems to be working well.”

“Sometimes slowly,” Brenner said.

“Sometimes slowly and sometimes too fast, as you tell us,” Schneider responded.

“Touché,” Brenner conceded, smiling.