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Latest Draft Would Walk Back Restriction on Utility Consolidated Billing; Require Customer-Specific Written T&C's To Be Sent After TPV

October 13, 2014

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Copyright 2010-14 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

A revised draft Connecticut PURA decision implementing several new statutes has dropped some of the more extreme proposals from an August draft, but would still impose onerous new requirements on electric supplier marketing and contracting.

The August draft decision from PURA, in Docket 13-07-18, was notable for the following:

• It would have prohibited suppliers from using utility consolidated billing for "variable" rate products (meaning products that have rates that vary within a billing cycle).

• All products would have been limited to a term of 12 months or less

• Contract assignments to another supplier would have required affirmative consent by the customer

All three of these provisions are absent from PURA's latest draft.

The latest draft would also allow suppliers to continue to post variable rate plans to the CTenergyinfo rate board, and rates under variable plans could be adjusted daily, weekly or monthly

The draft specifies that for fixed rate products, or variable rates that only vary by month, "To assure that generation rates change with the On-Cycle [meter read] date under Fixed and Variable-Monthly plans, suppliers will be directed to submit price changes under these plans no sooner than five business days before the customer's On-Cycle date."

The draft includes templates that suppliers must follow exactly for new notices required by statute, specifically: (1) quarterly rate notices; (2) notice at the end of a fixed rate term; (3) notice when a customer is to be billed a variable rate; and (4) notice when a customer's rate will increase by 25% or more.

The draft provides that while notices #2-4 can be sent through a variety of means, statutory language requires that the quarterly rate notices must be sent by mail.

For all four types of notices, "A copy of each notice and proof of mailing or delivery must be maintained by the supplier in the customer's file for at least three years and be provided to the customer or the Authority upon request," the draft states.

For notices #2-4, the notice may be provided via United States mail, electronic mail, text message, an application on a cellular telephone or a third-party notification service approved by the Authority. However, the selection of delivery is the purview of the customer, and PURA's draft would require that the supplier must be able to offer all of these delivery methods for the customer to select.

"A customer's choice of notification method must be in writing, a copy of which must be maintained in the customer's file for at least three years after the customer's service has ended," the draft states

See PURA's draft decision (click here) for each notice template (starting on page 57) and the required information on each type of notice

The draft also clarifies that, pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. §16-245o, "prior to the initiation of electric generation services, each customer must be provided a written copy of the contract, and each contract must contain a beginning and a renewal or expiration date of the contract."

"[A]ll such telephone verifications and electronic transactions must be confimed [sic] in writing and provided to the customer as the written contract, consistent with Conn. Gen. Stat. §16-245o(f). A generic Terms and Conditions, standing alone, would not qualify as a written contract as contemplated by Conn. Gen. Stat. §16-245o(f)(2)," the draft states.

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