Constellation Seeks Temporary Budget Billing Waiver in Pennsylvania as it Prepares for Residential Service

Constellation NewEnergy has submitted an expedited petition at the Pennsylvania PUC for a temporary waiver of the PUC rules regarding electric generation supplier budget billing, to the extent they require a supplier to provide budget billing information for its residential customers.

As only reported in Matters, Constellation said that it planned on serving residential customers in Pennsylvania by mid-year (1/18). In its petition, Constellation gave no more specific plans, other than that it is currently planning to market to residential and small commercial customers in certain Pennsylvania territories sometime this year.

Constellation said that it currently employs Lodestar for its billing systems, which do not yet have budget billing functionalities. Even where utility consolidated billing is used, the supplier retains the obligation to provide the budget billing amount to the utility, which then bills the customer, if the utility's billing system cannot automatically calculate the supplier budget bill amount.

Constellation said that it is planning to develop average billing functionality that can be used across states and utilities, and that will comply with various states' regulatory rules. Constellation expects to complete its budget billing solution by the end of 2011.

Until this solution is implemented, Constellation would, if its petition is granted, inform prospective residential customers that it is unable to provide budget billing for its charges until the January 2012 billing period.

Constellation noted that the PUC has recently granted temporary budget billing waivers to BlueStar Energy Services and Energy Plus Holdings, LLC.