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Texas PUC Overrules City's Finding In Customer Rate Classification Complaint At AEP Texas

June 4, 2018

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

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The Texas PUC in a final order has granted an appeal filed by AEP Texas concerning an order from the City of McAllen (City) which, as a city with original jurisdiction, had granted a complaint from L&F Distributors LTD, a customer which had argued that AEP Texas had incorrectly placed one of its metered accounts on the Transition Charges (TC) energy rate instead of the TC demand rate

The City had ordered AEP Texas to: (1) move the Account from the TC energy rate to the TC demand rate; (2) determine and present to L&F for verification the amount of the difference in TCs L&F incurred on the TC energy rate and what L&F would have incurred on the TC demand rate dating back to July 6, 2016; and (3) upon L&F’s verification, reimburse the determined amount to L&F.

AEP appealed the City's order to the Public Utility Commission of Texas, seeking a reversal of the City's order. As previously reported, in a proposal for decision in the PUC proceeding, an ALJ had recommended that the Commission grant AEP Texas’s appeal and reverse the City’s decision

The Commission in a final order determined that L&F Distributors’ account is properly classified in the energy-based commercial and small industrial rate class for purposes of transition charges and granted AEP Texas’s appeal

Effective January 1, 2002, L&F Distributors’ account was classified for purposes of transition charges in the rate class that corresponded with the bundled-rate class under which the account had been taking bundled service. "That classification is consistent with the Commission’s order that required CP&L to allocate its transition costs among its customers based on CP&L’s bundled-rate classes as they existed before the opening of the competitive market. Afterwards, on January 11, 2002, L&F Distributors’ account was reclassified to take service under a rate class that includes demand charges," the PUC said in its final order

"In this proceeding, L&F Distributors asserts that it is in an incorrect rate class for transition charges. Although its transition-charge class corresponds with L&F Distributors’ former, bundled-service rate class, L&F Distributors avers that it was originally placed in an incorrect rate class for bundled service. However, no direct evidence was admitted to support that assertion. Regardless, under the tariffs that have applied to L&F Distributors’ account (the tariff of CP&L and AEP Texas’s succeeding tariffs), the utility is not responsible for selection of the customer’s rate class," the PUC said in its final order

"As recommended by the SOAH ALJ in the PFD, the Commission concludes that L&F Distributors’ account was properly classified for purposes of transition charges and grants AEP Texas’s appeal," the PUC said in its final order

"Because the account was properly classified to the energy-based commercial and small industrial class for purposes of transition charges, no remedy to L&F Distributors is warranted," the PUC said in its final order

Docket 46602

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