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Sharyland Utilities Performing Cancels/Rebills For Customers Erroneously Subject To Demand Ratchet

October 13, 2015

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Copyright 2010-15 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Karen Abbott • kabbott@energychoicematters.com

Sharyland Utilities, LP is conducting cancels and rebills for customers who were erroneously subject to a demand ratchet due to a lack of kW data for customers and language in the tariff concerning treatment of customers without kW data.

Such erroneous demand ratchet applications occurred in instances such as that of a customer who was recently transitioned from service under the Secondary Service Less than or Equal to 10 kW rate schedule (Small Secondary) to the Secondary Service Greater than 10 kW rate schedule (Large Secondary) rate schedule

Sharyland noted that customers in the Small Secondary class are billed solely on kWh usage, whereas customers in the Large Secondary class are billed on a kW basis. Accordingly, Sharyland's billing system does not contain the kW values for Small Secondary customers.

Therefore, when the customer was transferred to the Large Secondary class and there was no kW billing history for the customer, the billing system defaulted under the terms of current Tariff Section 6.1.1.1.3 to a greater than 25% load factor (which triggers the ratchet) based upon the provision that, "...if less than 90 days of billing history is available, the premise shall be assumed to have an Annual Load Factor greater than 25%." A ratchet was therefore applied to the customer

In reviewing a complaint from the customer, Sharyland found that the meter did have the ability to capture a kW value during the monthly meter readings, although it was not transferred to the billing system and used for billing purposes. If this data is considered and used by Sharyland to calculate an annual load factor for this account, it results in a load factor calculation less than 25%, meaning an overbilling occurred.

Sharyland believes that searching its available meter data, even when that data is not used for billing purposes, is the best outcome for the customer, so Sharyland intends to perform cancel-rebills on the customer's account to reflect this credit

During the most recent Public Utility Commission of Texas open meeting, Sharyland said that it was undertaking a review of this issue across all of its customer accounts to ensure similarly situated customers, "receive a credit."

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