Briefly

Ontario Confirms New Supplier Marketing Standards
The Ontario Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure confirmed as final its draft rules to implement legislation earlier this year calling for a series of new marketing and solicitation rules applicable to competitive electric and natural gas suppliers (see Matters, 85/10 & 4/27/10). Among other things, the final rules confirm that suppliers must show a comparison between their rate and the default service rate when soliciting customers. The rules also cap termination fees at either $50 (electric) or $100 (gas) per year remaining on the contract. The provincial government will require suppliers to be assessed for the costs of the Ontario Energy Board’s enforcement functions as well.

PUCT Rejects Settlement, Directs AllStar Cases to Proceed to Hearing
The PUCT rejected a proposed settlement between Staff and AllStar Energy (TexRep5 LLC) which would have rescinded Staff's petition to revoke AllStar's REP certificate, as Chairman Barry Smitherman and Commission Donna Nelson said that the State Office of Administrative Hearings should proceed to hear the case. Smitherman reiterated his concerns with the settlement (see Matters, 10/14/10), stressing that if the Commission is serious about preventing bad actors from entering the retail market, it cannot allow applicants to evade disclosure of prior bad acts due to technicalities such as the prior bad acts being committed by a technically unaffiliated company which shares the same principals.

Smitherman to Lead Review of State Estimator Data Release Question
Chairman Barry Smitherman will take a lead in working with stakeholders concerning when ERCOT nodal state estimator data should be released (Project No. 38470). During yesterday's open meeting, Smitherman continued to express skepticism about delaying the release of the data, currently scheduled to be posted hourly, until 60 days. Several generators have argued that the state estimator data can be used to determine resource-specific data such as generator operating levels and offer curves which are not released for 60 days. Smitherman also stressed that the 60 day release of offer curve data was a compromise, noting there is nothing magical about the number.

PUCT Issues Prepay Proposal for Publication for Comment
The PUCT will issue for comment, unmodified, Staff's proposal for publication concerning amendments of Subst. R. 25.498, which would prohibit REPs from offering prepaid service without the use of a customer prepayment device or system (Project 38675). Commissioner Kenneth Anderson did have some questions regarding the proposal, but will address them at a later date as the Commission was pressed with competitive renewable energy zone dockets during its open meeting yesterday.