Texas Retail Providers Say Prohibition On Utilities Providing Competitive Energy Service Should Extend To Energy Usage Info Value-Add (Dashboard, Graphs, Email Summaries, Estimates, Disaggregation Services)

September 5, 2019

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Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

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In comments on a strawman rule which includes rule provisions related to advanced metering and Smart Meter Texas, the Alliance for Retail Markets said that the prohibition against a TDU's provision of a competitive energy service should equally apply in the context of a web portal providing customers with advanced meter data

ARM stated, "The prohibition against a TDU's provision of a competitive energy service should equally apply in the context of a web portal operated pursuant to 16 TAC § 25.130 [relating to advanced metering]."

"For example, a web portal should not compete with a REP's presentation of retail customer usage data through dashboards, graphs, email usage summaries, usage estimates, budget alerts, disaggregation services, benchmarking, charts, and other interactive tools. Otherwise, the REP will be competitively disadvantaged," ARM said

To clarify the scope of this prohibition, ARM requested the inclusion of the following language in the rule:

"An electric utility subject to § 25.343 of this title (relating to Competitive Energy Services) must not provide any advanced metering equipment or service, including any service provided through a web portal, that is deemed a competitive energy service under the rule. Any functionality of the AMS that is a required feature under this section or that is included in an approved Deployment Plan or otherwise approved by the Commission does not constitute a competitive energy service under § 25.343 of this title."

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