TITLE: Standards of Conduct (Transmission Services, Wholesale Merchant Operations and any affiliates engaged in either the transmission system operations and reliability functions or the wholesale merchant function)

COMPANY: Cleco Corporation

CATEGORY: Miscellaneous

ACTIVITY: Miscellaneous

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT: Lynn Ferry

PURPOSE:

CLECO has filed Transmission Service Tariffs with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission consistent with the Commission's final rule on Open Access Non-Discriminatory Transmission Services. CLECO is committed to providing transmission services to third parties on a non-discriminatory basis and will not provide transmission services for its own bulk wholesale transactions in a manner that is preferential to the service provided to third parties. CLECO must conduct its business to conform with the following standards:

Except as provided in the next paragraph, the employees of CLECO engaged in transmission operations must function independently of its employees, or the employees of any of its affiliates, who engage in wholesale merchant functions.

In emergency circumstances affecting system reliability, Transmission Services will take whatever steps are necessary to keep the system in operation. CLECO must report to the Commission and on the OASIS, each emergency that resulted in any deviation from the Standards of Conduct, within 24 hours of the deviation.

Prohibitions

Any employee of CLECO, or any employee of an affiliate, engaged in wholesale merchant functions, is prohibited from:

(i) Conducting transmission system operations or reliability functions; and

(ii) Having access to the system control center or similar facilities used for transmission operations or reliability functions that differs in any way from the access available to other open access transmission customers.

Transfers

Employees in either the wholesale merchant functions or the transmission system operations or reliability functions are not precluded from transferring between such functions as long as such transfer is not used as a means to circumvent these Standards of Conduct. Notices of any employee transfer to or from transmission system operations or reliability functions must be posted on the OASIS per FERC rules. The information to be posted must include the name of the transferring employee, the respective titles held while performing each function and the effective date of the transfer. The information posted under this section must remain on the OASIS for 90 days.

Information Access

Any employee of CLECO, or of any affiliates, engaged in wholesale merchant functions:

(i) Shall have access to only that information available to the CLECO's open access transmission customers such as that posted on the OASIS; and must not have preferential access to any information about CLECO's transmission system that is not available to all users of its OASIS, and

(ii) Are prohibited from obtaining information about CLECO's transmission system (including information about available transmission capability, price, curtailments, ancillary services, and the like) through access to information not posted on the OASIS that is not otherwise also available to the general public without restriction, or through information through the OASIS that is not also publicly available to all OASIS users.

Disclosure

CLECO is responsible for ensuring compliance with the following provisions:

(i) Any employee in of CLECO of any employee of an affiliate, engaged in transmission operations or reliability functions may not disclose to employees of CLECO, or any of its affiliates, engaged in wholesale merchant functions, any information concerning the transmission system of CLECO or the transmission system of another (including information received from non-affiliates or information about available transmission capability, price, curtailments, ancillary services, etc.) through non-public communications conducted off the OASIS, through access to information not posted on the OASIS that is not the same time available to the general public without restriction, or through information on the OASIS this is not at the same time publicly available to all OASIS users (such as E-mail).

(ii) If an employee in CLECO engaged in transmission system operations or reliability functions discloses information not posted on the OASIS in a manner contrary to the requirements of these standards of conduct, such information shall be posted immediately on the OASIS.

(iii) Employees of CLECO may not share any market information, acquired from nonaffiliated transmission customers or potential nonaffiliated transmission customers, or developed in the course of responding to request for transmission or ancillary service on the OASIS, with employees, or those of an affiliate, engaged in wholesale merchant functions, except to the limited extent information is required to be posted on the OASIS in response to a request for transmission service or ancillary services.

Employees of CLECO engaged in transmission system operations or reliability functions must strictly enforce all tariff provisions relating to the sale or purchase of open access transmission service, if these provisions do not provide for the use of discretion.

Employees of CLECO engaged in transmission system operations or reliability functions must apply all tariff provisions relating to the sale or purchase of open access transmission service in a fair and impartial manner that treats all customers (including CLECO's Wholesale Merchant Operations and any affiliate) in a non-discriminatory manner, if these provisions involve discretion.

CLECO must keep a log, available for FERC audit, detailing the circumstances and manner in which it exercised its discretion under any terms of the tariff.

CLECO may not, through its tariffs or otherwise, give preference to wholesale purchases or sales made on behalf of its own power customers, over the interests of any other wholesale customer in matters relating to the sale or purchase of transmission service (including issues of price, curtailments, scheduling, priority, ancillary services, etc.).

CLECO, as a transmission provider, must maintain its books of account and records separately from those of its affiliates and these must be available for FERC inspection.

CLECO must maintain in a public place, and file with the FERC, current written procedures implementing the Standards of Conduct in such detail as will enable customers and the FERC to determine that CLECO is in compliance with the requirements of these standards.