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Utility With 50% Shopping Rate Seeks To Offer New Non-Commodity Services (Energy Consumption Analysis, Protection Services)

March 21, 2017

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Copyright 2010-17 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

In an electric rate case with the Public Utility Commission of Ohio, Duke Energy Ohio is seeking authorization to offer several non-commodity products and services to customers

"Duke Energy Ohio is interested in offering its customers products and services that would allow customers, solely at their discretion, to leverage the Company's expertise and knowledge around provision of electric utility service and energy consumption," Duke Energy Ohio said in testimony

Duke Energy Ohio said in testimony that such special customer services to be offered to residential and non- residential customers may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Providing whole-house surge protection

• Providing customized energy consumption analysis services, tools and reports

• Design, construction and maintenance of customer-owned substations

• Resolving power quality problems on customer equipment

• Providing training programs for construction, operation, and maintenance of electric facilities

• Performing or providing for the provision of customer equipment maintenance, repair, or installation

• Providing service entrance cable repair

• Providing restorative temporary underground service

• Providing upgrades or increases to an existing service connection at customer request

• Performing outage or voltage problem assessment

• Disconnecting a customer-owned transformer at customer request

• Loosening and refastening customer owned equipment; determining the location of underground cables on customer premises

• Covering up lines for protection at customer request

• Making a generator available to customer during construction to avoid outage

• Providing pole-hold for customer to perform some activity

• Providing a "service saver" device to provide temporary service during an outage

• Resetting a customer-owned reclosure device

• Providing phase rotation of customer equipment at customer request

• Conducting an evaluation at customer request to ensure that customer equipment meets standards

• Upgrading the customer to three phase service

As previously reported, Duke Energy Ohio has previously received PUCO authorization to offer such services, but such decision was reversed and remanded to PUCO by the state Supreme Court.

While the Court did not reach a conclusion regarding whether a utility's offering of nonelectric products and services would violate R.C. 4928.17, Ohio’s corporate separation plan statute, the Court said that, "we are admittedly skeptical as to how the commission could approve Duke’s amended plan under R.C. 4928.17(C) or (D) based on the record before us," though the Court provided PUCO with the opportunity to issue findings that thoroughly explain how --if at all -- Duke’s application complies with the specific relevant provisions in R.C. 4928.17. A decision on remand has not yet been issued

In the new rate case, Duke Energy Ohio said in testimony that new language in the tariff would, "clarify and limit those special services to ones that would advance the policies of the state of Ohio," making such services appropriate for provisions by the utility

"The provision of these non-generation related products and services allows customers to voluntarily receive the benefits from the programs from a trusted provider, while at the same time, not impacting the competitive market for the provision of retail generation service that has been established in Ohio," Duke Energy Ohio said in testimony

"In order to alleviate concerns regarding the competitiveness of these special services, the Company will safeguard customers' real-time awareness of their competitive supplier options by requiring any customer requesting the proposed unregulated products or services sign a work order stating that they have been informed that these products or services are unregulated and that they can be performed by other vendors," Duke Energy Ohio said in testimony

Additionally, Duke Energy Ohio indicated that it would in the future seek to offer customers additional services based upon an enhanced AMI system, though it was not specifically seeking approval to offer these additional services as part of the instant rate case

Duke Energy Ohio envisions that it would offer the following "Enhanced Basic Services (EBSs)" to customers in the future:

• Usage Alerts - An AMI-enabled program providing customers with a mid-cycle report of their usage to date, along with projections of the end-of-cycle bill, based on historical usage and weather data. Customers also have the opportunity to opt in to receive threshold-based reports, this functionality allows a customer to input their preferred threshold and receive notifications as they approach 75 percent and 100 percent of their preset threshold. Customers can receive these messages via email and/or text message (SMS).

• Smart Meter Usage App - The utility is investigating the possibility of enhancing its existing MyHER efficiency program by offering customers an in-home device that will communicate directly with the smart meter and provide real-time feedback to the customer on energy usage. This functionality will potentially take the engagement and education around energy efficiency and energy usage behaviors to the next level, Duke Energy Ohio said

• Prepaid Advantage - A potential AMI-enabled efficiency program that allows customers to prepay for electricity, thereby avoiding a security deposit, late fees, or any reconnect fees.

• Pick Your Own Due Date - An AMI-enabled program that allows customers to choose a monthly due date that best aligns with their personal situation

• Outage Alerts with AMI - Duke Energy Ohio has already provided proactive outage and restoration messages to enrolled customers but, with the AMI enhancements, this functionality can be enhanced to provide even more timely and granular information.

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