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New York Sets Fees For Municipal Aggregations' Receipt Of Customer Info, Lists

December 15, 2017

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

The New York PSC has established fees for access to aggregated community load data, as well as the customer information needed for opt-out mailings, for municipal aggregation (community choice aggregation or CCA) programs.

"Based on the utility filings, the Commission finds that it is reasonable to base the costs to be recovered via CCA fees on an estimated CCA request rate of 25% of eligible customers over five years," the PSC said

Noting higher estimates provided by some utilities, the PSC said that, "The Commission declines to adopt the utilities’ higher estimates of value as that would be a barrier to CCAs."

"In addition, because the utility costs are relatively similar and to promote the uniformity and simplicity that will support a robust CCA market, a uniform fee will be set for all utilities," the PSC said

"Based on the average estimated costs and recognizing that obtaining the mailing list and the ability to engage in an opt-out program provides a value to CCAs and ESCOs in the form of avoiding customer acquisition costs, the Commission establishes a uniform fee, for all utilities, of $.80 per account. The fee will be apportioned 20% to requests to utilities for aggregated data and 80% to request to utilities for customer lists," the PSC ordered

"This apportionment achieves back-loading of the charges consistent with the CCA Order in that the request for customer lists will occur after the ESCO procurement has been successfully completed and approved by the municipality, which represents a point at which the CCA is being implemented. The Commission considers the customized aggregated data and customer list as value-added services because they are not yet services that are benefitting all or most ratepayers," the PSC said

In its order, the PSC allocated certain costs of a proposed Utility Energy Registry (UER) (which remains pending and whose authorization was not addressed in the CCA order) to CCAs.

"[T]he UER is an online platform designed to offer streamlined public access to aggregated customer data for electric and natural gas, segmented by customer type and by municipality and zip code," the PSC said, as the PSC further noted that the UER platform could include information that is the subject of the CCA Order and the utilities’ proposed fees

"The availability of the UER should enable CCAs to more efficiently formulate arrangements with ESCOs and lower overall utility data provisioning costs. While more customized aggregated data requests can be made to utilities, the Commission recognizes that the UER may enable CCAs to conduct requests for information regarding the formation of CCAs and possibly even to conduct supply procurements without the need for customized aggregated data. Because eventual access to the UER will benefit ratepayers generally through community-based energy planning efforts to achieve state-wide clean energy goals and increase consumer awareness of consumption practices and REV related opportunities to consume energy more efficiently, a portion of the cost of generating aggregated data and populating the UER will be allocated to all ratepayers and a portion will be recovered through the CCA fees," the PSC said

"The cost to produce customer lists for the opt-out process (name, address for CCA eligible customers) and to prepare computer queries to generate aggregated data were estimated by each utility in response to Staff information requests. It is reasonable to conclude that the estimated cost to prepare computer queries for customized aggregated data would be similar to and overlap with the costs to prepare queries to populate the UER. Because the UER will benefit ratepayers generally through community-based energy planning efforts to achieve state-wide clean energy goals and increase consumer awareness of consumption practices and REV related opportunities to consume energy more efficiently, one-half of the estimated cost to prepare queries to populate the UER will be recovered from all ratepayers. The remaining costs will be recovered from the fees for customer lists and customized aggregated data," the PSC said

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