Central Hudson to Require ESCOs to Take Winter Bundled Sales Service for Certain Customers

Central Hudson Gas & Electric has submitted tariff amendments to the New York PSC to make Winter Bundled Sales (WBS) Service mandatory for retail gas suppliers serving Service Classification Nos. 6, 12 & 13 customers.

Central Hudson said that the proposal was made pursuant to preliminary discussions with PSC Staff and retail suppliers, which most recently took place during the company's August 2011 ESCO conference call.

Currently, retail suppliers must either elect WBS, or take the Balancing Service Option under which suppliers take assignment of additional capacity, for twelve months, for all customers in their Retail Access pool.

"Given the growth in the Company's Retail program over the past several years, the move to require suppliers to take WBS will reduce the amount of capacity released to suppliers through the mandatory ‘slice-of-system' and allow the Company to delay adding more capacity, including Canadian capacity requiring import rights and other domestic capacity where the liquidity of such capacity is yet to be determined, to the capacity available for the Retail program," Central Hudson said.

"Additionally, this change will result in all Retail Suppliers paying the same costs for the additional capacity needed to meet customers' requirements during the winter months while at the same time simplifying Central Hudson's administrative responsibilities for the Retail Program."

The tariff amendments were filed to become effective April 1, coincident with the deadline for retail suppliers to make their WBS election for the following twelve months.