Commercial energy / Buyer guidance
Electricity nominations versus gas nominations: who schedules what?
Clarify scheduling responsibility in a business energy agreement, with a handoff checklist and a hypothetical gas nomination reconciliation.
A retail electricity buyer should identify its actual responsibility
Gas nominations are requests to schedule gas movements under a pipeline or transportation arrangement. Electricity scheduling uses different market and operating processes. An ordinary retail electric customer should not infer that it must file gas-style nominations simply because a supplier contract mentions scheduling or forecasting.
This legacy URL remains available, but the practical task is to identify the service and the party responsible. Ask whether the customer supplies a consumption forecast, a supplier schedules wholesale power, a gas shipper nominates transportation or the utility handles a bundled service. Those arrangements have different data, deadlines and consequences.
Make the handoff explicit
For every forecasting or scheduling obligation, record the required unit, location, period, recipient and confirmation. A submitted request is not necessarily an accepted quantity. Identify how revisions are handled and which party receives operational notices. A backup contact needs access and authority before the primary contact is absent.
The Atmos Pipeline–Texas nomination instructions are one concrete example of a gas process. They must not be generalized into a universal deadline for all pipelines or electricity customers. Use the instructions and tariff for the actual service.
Worked example: request, confirmation and actual use are three records
Illustrative gas transportation example: a shipper requests 1,000 MMBtu for a day. The accepted schedule is 950 MMBtu and recorded use is 980 MMBtu. The request differs from use by 20 MMBtu, but the accepted schedule differs from use by 30 MMBtu. Which difference matters depends on the governing settlement rules.
The example does not establish a penalty or tolerance. If a hypothetical agreement settles a 30 MMBtu shortfall at $6/MMBtu, the settlement amount is $180 before other adjustments. The actual tariff may use different quantities, periods or prices. Do not reuse that gas calculation as an electricity invoice formula.
A responsibility matrix to complete before service begins
| Activity | Named party | Evidence required |
|---|---|---|
| Submit operating forecast | Customer or appointed agent | Dated forecast and assumptions |
| Make scheduling request | Authorized supplier or shipper | Submission record |
| Confirm accepted schedule | Relevant operator or counterparty | Confirmation and revisions |
| Reconcile actual use | Contractually responsible party | Meter and settlement records |
| Escalate mismatch | Primary and backup contacts | Notice, response and resolution |
Have each party confirm its row. A salesperson's general statement that scheduling is included is not enough when another clause assigns imbalance costs to the customer. For ordinary retail power procurement, obtain written confirmation of what the supplier manages and what operating changes the customer must report.
Sources and limits
Atmos Pipeline–Texas nomination requirements supplies a specific primary process example. FERC's gas resources identifies the regulatory context. All quantities and settlement prices above are teaching assumptions, not tariff terms or actual customer records.