Stipulation to Set Eligibility, Cap for Competitive Generation Service at Entergy Texas

A unanimous stipulation among parties would establish the eligibility and cap for the competitive generation service (CGS) tariff at Entergy Texas, Inc. (38951)

The stipulation, signed by Entergy Texas, PUCT Staff, Office of Public Utility Counsel, Texas Industrial Energy Consumers, Wal-Mart, and other parties, would resolve customer eligibility based on the following terms:

• There will be a 115 MW cap on the CGS program.

• There will be a 5 MW minimum on CGS customer load.

• There will be no aggregation of CGS customer load to meet the 5 MW minimum on CGS customer load.

• Only customers eligible to take service under Entergy Texas, Inc.'s (ETI) Large Industrial Power Service (LIPS) would be eligible customers for the CGS program.

• Only LIPS firm load will be eligible to participate in the CGS program.

• LIPS customers with interruptible service (IS) or standby and maintenance service (SMS) load are not precluded from participating in the CGS program, but this participation is limited to their firm LIPS load. To the extent that customers with IS load participate in the CGS program, they must comply with the terms of the IS tariffs regarding minimum LIPS load. Only the portion of the customer's LIPS load that is in excess of the firm contract power minimum requirement under section 1 of Schedule IS is eligible for the CGS program.

• To the extent there are increased administration costs associated with billing a customer that has CGS and IS or SMS load, the CGS customer will bear the costs.

• There will be a cap of 10 CGS Purchase Agreements.

Under a prior stipulation, parties agreed that eligible CGS Suppliers will be limited to Qualifying Facilities that are or will be directly connected to Entergy Texas, Inc. (see prior story)

A separate, unopposed stipulation would also hold that any unrecovered costs from the CGS program would be borne solely by customers taking service under the CGS tariff.

The only remaining issue is whether there are unrecovered costs under the program which Entergy is permitted to recover (see 3/27 story for discussion). A hearing on the merits is being held today.