Large Municipal Aggregation Urges Regulator To Disclose Utility Lists Of Currently Shopping Customers So That City May Contact Shopping Customers And Avoid "Price Crisis" From Individual Choice Service

September 24, 2021

Email This Story
Copyright 2010-21 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

The City of Boston, which operates an opt-out municipal aggregation for electricity, has renewed its request for reconsideration at the Massachusetts DPU in which the City is seeking an order from the DPU to require Nstar to share a list of currently shopping customers with the City

As previously reported, the City in its aggregation plan had, "sought the right to have access to the list of competitive supplier customers from Eversource so that they [the City] could provide targeted consumer protection education."

While the DPU previously rejected this request, the City said that, "Urgent action is now needed to help avert an emerging crisis for competitive supply customers with variable electricity rates."

"Because electricity prices are climbing significantly as winter approaches, residents of Boston on variable rate electricity supply contracts with third-party suppliers are facing a potential financial crisis. Forward market wholesale electricity prices for the three-month period December 2021 through February 2022 are currently trading at an average of about $141 /MWh for Around-the-Clock calendar month product, an increase of $85 /MWh, or 152% since this time last year. We believe that electricity prices may continue to increase because of the rising cost of natural gas, strong demand for U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas, a conservative return to pre-pandemic natural gas production and, consequently, supplies of gas in storage that are concerningly below-average as we approach the winter heating season," the City said

"We fear that these market conditions coupled with a cold winter could result in actual ISO New England power costs in line with current forward market prices. Consequently, competitive supplier customers on variable rates will see increased rates and, as a result, increased bills. These variable rates could be more than 22 cents per KWh this winter, which is double BCCE's Default Rate of 11.161 cents per KWh for the period from November 2021 to December 2023, a difference of $65 per month using the 600 KWh per month the Department uses as an average household's usage," the City said

"Customers will not be aware of the rate increases until after they have used the electricity. As such, variable price customers will receive a shock in the form of substantially higher electricity bills. If electricity prices continue to rise, the bills will also continue to rise," the City said

"As the Attorney General has repeatedly reported, some third-party suppliers provide discounted initial rates to get customers to switch. At the end of the introductory period, customers are usually switched to a variable rate unless the customer chooses to switch to another provider or seeks another contract term ... The City believes that this process is an unfair bait-and-switch which has resulted in significant overpayments by many customers when compared to Basic Service or municipal aggregation. Indeed, the Attorney General estimates the Commonwealth's customers overpaid by $173 million over a recent two-year period in the Commonwealth. These overpayments disproportionately impact environmental justice communities. The rising electricity prices threaten to substantially increase this overpayment during the 2021-2022 winter," the City said

"The City of Boston wants to communicate directly to the customers who may be on these variable rates to alert them to this risk and to offer them the option of switching to Boston Community Choice Electricity and the fixed price stability that it offers from November 2021 to December 2023. Protecting Boston residents is an essential function of municipal government," the City said

"In the City's Aggregation Plan application, the City sought the right to have access to the competitive supplier customer list from Eversource so that the City could provide targeted consumer protection education. After the Department denied the City's access to competitive supplier customer list from Eversource, on August 12, 2020, the City filed its Motion asking the Department to reconsider its decision on this issue," the City said

"If the Department grants the City's request, it would prepare and directly mail educational material about the growing price crisis to affected customers. The Department's failure to act is preventing the most effective means to communicate with at-risk competitive supply customers; and will result in significant economic harm to many residents, including many of the most vulnerable," the City said

Alternately, rather than requiring that the shopping customer lists be shared with the City, "the Department could undertake preparation and mailing such a notice to all competitive supply customers in the Commonwealth," the City suggested

Docket 19-65

ADVERTISEMENT
NEW Jobs on RetailEnergyJobs.com:
• NEW! -- Power Analyst
• NEW! -- Financial Analyst
• NEW! -- Environmental Commodity Analyst
• NEW! -- Gas Analyst
• Energy Pricing Analyst -- Retail Supplier
• Senior Account Operations Analyst -- Retail Supplier
• Energy Procurement Manager

HOME

Copyright 2010-21 Energy Choice Matters.  If you wish to share this story, please email or post the website link; unauthorized copying, retransmission, or republication prohibited.