ABACCUS Residential Rankings Shift As Load Size Added to Criteria

Texas retained its top spot in the Annual Baseline Assessment of Choice in Canada and the United States (ABACCUS) for residential markets reported by Distributed Energy Financial Group, but the addition of several new criteria jumbled the rankings after the top three.

Most notably, Connecticut, which has a higher statewide percentage of migrated residential customers than any other North American market except for Texas, fell five spots in the latest residential rankings. Connecticut placed 12th, falling from 7th a year ago, though its numeric score was relatively constant (45 in 2010 versus 47 in 2009).

However, several jurisdictions jumped ahead of Connecticut in the rankings with higher scores, notably Ohio (with no residential offers in several service areas), Illinois (with a single publicized residential offer), New Jersey, and Ontario. Aside from lacking the significant residential migration present in Connecticut, those markets also lack state-wide Purchase of Receivables, a customer referral program, and generally do not have a significantly more market-based default service procurement process than Connecticut.

The primary reason for the changes in rankings was several additional criteria added in the ABACCUS methodology for 2010. Most prominently, market size was added for the first time as a measure of market attractiveness. This new market size metric is largely responsible for large states with less attractive retail market designs (Illinois, Ohio) jumping ahead of Connecticut, which has done everything asked of it by retail suppliers except move to quarterly priced default service.

2010 ABACCUS Residential Rankings

ABACCUS noted that Connecticut is significantly ahead of nearly all markets in terms of statewide residential migration, with Connecticut leading the U.S. among states with a traditional default service provider (totals include municipal aggregation):

Texas 87.1%
Connecticut 32.1%
Alberta 27.2%
Ohio 24.4%
New York 17.9%
Massachusetts 12.2%
Pennsylvania 10.0%
Maryland 9.6%

ABACCUS also released rankings of commercial and industrial markets, with Texas leading, followed by New York and Illinois. Complete commercial and industrial rankings can be found on DEFG's website in the ABACCUS report (p. 14).

The ABACCUS rankings are based on a formula of several metrics covering: 1) retail market status, 2) wholesale market competition, 3) default or standard service design, and 4) facilitation of the choice of retailer.

2010 Rank	State	2010 Score	2010 Assessment	2009 Rank
1	Texas	86	Excellent	1
2	New York	63	Excellent	2
3	Alberta	62	Good	3
4	Pennsylvania	58	Good	9
5	Maryland	54	Marginal	4
6	Massachusetts	49	Good	5
7	Ohio	48	Marginal	16
8	Illinois	47	Good	8
9	Maine	46	Marginal	6
10	Ontario	46	Marginal	14
11	New Jersey	45	Marginal	10
12	Connecticut	45	Good	7
13	District of Columbia	41	Marginal	11
14	New Hampshire	36	Marginal	12
15	Rhode Island	32	Marginal	15
16	Delaware	32	Marginal	12
17	Michigan	NA	Unsatisfactory	18
18	California	NA	Unsatisfactory	17
19	Montana	NA	Unsatisfactory	19
20	Virginia	NA	Unsatisfactory	20
21	Oregon	NA	Unsatisfactory	21
22	Nevada	NA	Unsatisfactory	22
23	Arizona	NA	Unsatisfactory	23