Fitchburg Gas & Electric Says POR Must be Delayed Due to New CIS

Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light Company (Unitil) has informed the Massachusetts DPU that its current Customer Information System (CIS) cannot support a purchase of receivables program, and that POR implementation must be delayed until a new CIS is implemented.

Originally, Fitchburg Gas & Electric said that it anticipated implementing POR on the schedule established by the DPU, and anticipated accomplishing that goal by early 2012 (apart from the CIS issue, unresolved protests regarding the utilities' POR compliance tariffs pushed POR implementation beyond the previously anticipated early 2012 start date).

However, during the winter period of 2011-2012, Fitchburg Gas & Electric was responsible for implementing standard complete billing for the municipal aggregation which occurred in the Town of Lunenburg. This implementation involved approximately 4,500 customers and, while successful, "revealed severe limitations with the Company's current Customer Information System," Fitchburg Gas & Electric said.

"These limitations have arisen over time and have led Unitil to conclude that it will not be able to implement POR with its existing CIS. For this and a number of other reasons, it has become clear that the current CIS can no longer provide the support necessary for Unitil and its customers. The result has been a decision by the Company to purchase a new CIS," Fitchburg Gas & Electric said.

"The CIS changes required in order to accommodate POR, although theoretically possible with additional customization, would result in significant risk to the core billing and receivable functionalities that are deployed for all of the Company's customers. In addition to system architectural changes that the vendor would make, several additional supplier jurisdictional classes and receivable codes with corresponding journal entries would need to be established and tested to ensure that the financial integrity of each transaction remains intact. Due to the system's complex design, these changes would implicate the overall internal controls for all customers," Fitchburg Gas & Electric said.

Fitchburg Gas & Electric reported that its CIS implementation project is expected to begin in January 2013. Industry best practices indicate that a CIS implementation typically takes between 18-24 months, and Fitchburg Gas & Electric expects a similar timeline.

"Unitil's decision to replace its CIS necessitates postponing implementation of POR, as the prospect of a new system renders making an investment in the current CIS to accommodate POR for a very limited time period a poor choice. Moreover, the personnel who would ordinarily be assigned to update, reconfigure and maintain the current CIS in an attempt to accommodate POR are no longer available as they have been assigned to the replacement project," Fitchburg Gas & Electric said.

Fitchburg Gas & Electric, "would request Department approval of a delay in the formal implementation of POR specific to Unitil until such time as the Company's new CIS is fully operational."