New Hampshire Purchase of Receivables, Retail Enhancements Proceeding to Exclude Natural Gas

A New Hampshire proceeding examining various retail market enhancements, including Purchase of Receivables, will not include the natural gas market as previously directed, parties have agreed.

The retail market investigation, originally an outgrowth from a proceeding relating to a proposed nonbypassable charge at Public Service of New Hampshire, was opened to address purchase of receivables, customer referral, and electronic interface programs.

In opening the proceeding, as first reported by Matters, the PUC directed that natural gas utilities and well as electric utilities be included in the review.

At a recent technical conference, PUC Staff noted that natural gas choice in New Hampshire is currently limited to non-residential customers. Moreover, Staff noted that the natural gas utilities do not have systems in place to support EDI, and that mandatory capacity assignment limits the opportunities for small commercial and industrial customers to achieve savings under competitive supply.

Given these conditions, parties agreed that it would not be appropriate to include natural gas utilities in the retail markets proceeding.

However, Staff and some of the parties recommend that the Commission further explore restructuring of the natural gas market at the conclusion of the electric retail market proceeding.

EnergyNorth Natural Gas does not agree with the latter recommendation, stating that since natural gas restructuring, "the competitive gas market has been remarkably free of controversy or issues related to market design."

"At the technical session held on May 31, neither the Commission staff nor any party asserted that the competitive natural gas market was not working effectively. Similarly, EnergyNorth is not aware of any customers or others having raised concerns with the Commission related to the design of the gas market, and does not believe that it would be productive or an efficient use of the Commission's resources or those of the gas utilities or others to begin an open ended investigation of the competitive natural gas market in New Hampshire," EnergyNorth said.

In addition to POR, customer referral, and electronic interface programs, the retail electric markets investigation will consider on a generic basis how the costs associated with the provision of competitive supplier services generally should be collected. Such consideration was made in light of the specific relief from certain PSNH billing charges imposed on suppliers sought by Power New England (see prior story).

During the technical session, PSNH reiterated the position it had earlier stated on the record that the development of uniform policies binding on the state's electric utilities, competitive suppliers and customers would require a rulemaking subject to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act in Chapter 541-A. PSNH outlined a 3-step process, with this generic investigation into whether any such policies are warranted as the first step. If development of policies is found to be warranted, then PSNH posits that per Part Puc 205 of the Commission's rules a rulemaking would have to be noticed. Finally, if new rules are ultimately placed into effect, PSNH asserts that an implementation process would be required for each utility.