Energy Choice
                            

Matters

ConEd Files At FERC For Tariff Waiver To Correct LSE Meter Data; Error Had Resulted In Lower Bills For Default Service Customers (Higher Bills For Some ESCOs)

February 4, 2019

Email This Story
Copyright 2010-19 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

The following story is brought free of charge to readers by EC Infosystems, the exclusive EDI provider of EnergyChoiceMatters.com

Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc. has filed at FERC for a limited one-time waiver of the New York Independent System Operator’s ('NYISO') Market Administration and Control Area Services Tariff ('Tariff') to allow ConEd and NYISO to correct the Load Serving Entity ('LSE') bus metering data for LSEs that purchased energy in ConEd’s service territory in April 2018 ('April 2018 Meter Data').

ConEd said that the waiver is necessary to remedy errors in ConEd’s calculation of Unaccounted for Energy ('UFE') during the April 2018 billing period. As described by Direct Energy in comments in support of ConEd's request, the errors, "resulted in inflated and incorrect wholesale energy bills for LSEs in ConEd’s service territory."

While ConEd identified the problem prior to the final deadline for meter data submission and challenges, it was unable to provide corrected data by such deadline; hence the need for the waiver. The New York ISO filed comments in support of ConEd's request waiver.

In its request, ConEd stated that there was a problem with the meter data aggregation process. The Transmission Owner Data Reporting System (TODRS) new code was not accurately aggregating the metering data for all ESCOs. "This issue was difficult to trace as this had not been a problem since TODRS’ inception and only selected ESCOs were affected; one of the reasons it was undetected the first time it was tested," ConEd said in its request

ConEd in its request noted that, "While a few ESCOs (including Con Edison on behalf of its full-service retail customers) received lower energy bills for April (and will therefore see an increase in costs as a result of the waiver), the rest of the ESCOs received higher energy bills for April and will experience a decrease in their NYISO bill or will receive a credit from the NYISO for their April 2018 bill."

"[I]t is appropriate for market participants operating in the Con Edison Service Territory that paid for more energy than their customers consumed due to a computer software mishap to receive a refund even if it means that some LSEs may wind up paying more. In the end, granting a waiver will enable LSEs to pay the actual amount their customers’ used," ConEd said in its request

Direct Energy said in its comments that, "the inclusion of inaccurate UFE values in the April 2018 Meter Data caused NYISO to improperly inflate Direct Energy’s wholesale energy bill for April 2018 by approximately $700,000 (based on estimates derived from the corrections ConEd made for the May and June 2018 billing periods)."

ConEd said that, to minimize such errors in the future, it is instituting an earlier more thorough review of new code in the test environment of the software before it is migrated and used to furnish the NYISO energy reports. In addition, ConEdison will make available to the LSEs in its service territory the specific data used to produce the energy reports. The first measure will lower the risk of computer software errors and the second provides the LSEs with an increased opportunity to detect errors earlier, ConEd said

Docket ER19-814

ADVERTISEMENT
NEW Jobs on RetailEnergyJobs.com:
• NEW! -- Retail Energy Channel Manager -- Retail Supplier
• NEW! -- Energy Sales Broker
• NEW! -- Business Development Manager -- Retail Supplier -- Houston
• NEW! -- Business Development Manager
• NEW! -- Regulatory & Compliance Analyst -- Retail Supplier
• NEW! -- Sales Quality & Training Manager -- Retail Energy