Electric Suppliers May Begin Using Maryland PSC Price Portal by End of Month

The Maryland PSC has established a secure online portal to allow electricity suppliers with active offers available in the state to upload information required by recent legislation.

Electricity suppliers may begin using the portal effective October 28, 2011.

Legislation requires the suppliers to list on the portal

1) The terms of any open offers to supply electricity, including:

a. The duration of the contract;

b. The cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour; and

c. Any cancellation fees; and

2) A link to the web site of each electricity supplier with an open offer to supply electricity.

When available, the PSC said that the back-end of the secure portal may be accessed through the Commission's web site, www.psc.state.md.us, by clicking on Online Services, followed by the sub-heading Electric Supplier's Portal. Each electricity supplier must register to use the portal.

The information uploaded shall be associated with the Commission's list of suppliers that is available on the web page for Electric Choice on the Commission's web site. When a consumer initiates a query on the Commission's web site for electric suppliers "actively seeking new customers," only those suppliers that have uploaded the required information through the secure web site will be listed as having open offers. In addition, for supplier offers to be listed after a query, suppliers must have notified the Commission Staff that they are actively seeking residential or non-residential customers in each service territory.

Suppliers will have the ability to upload separate files containing separate open offers, by customer type, for the various service territories. Suppliers should upload new/updated offers through the Commission's secure portal within three days of a change to an open offer, the PSC said.

All new/updated offers from a supplier for a respective service territory that is uploaded through the secure portal will overwrite the complete contents of a previous offer upload. In addition, all open offers from suppliers are self-contained and will be displayed as submitted after a query is initiated from an end-user.