Vectren Sees Decline in Residential Customers on Choice Service

The number of natural gas customers taking choice service at Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio fell from June 2012 to September 2012, according to the latest data from PUCO.

Link to PUCO data

Matters has also developed a comparison of choice accounts served in June 2012 versus September 2012. As used in this story and the comparison, accounts on choice service refer to customers served by a choice supplier outside of the SCO, SSO, or GCR [default service].

Link to Matters Comparison of Choice Accounts

According to the PUCO data, from June 2012 to September 2012, Vectren saw the number of residential accounts on choice service fall by 1,100 accounts, versus the growth of 7,900 residential accounts on choice service from March 2012 to June 2012.

From June 2012 to September 2012, Columbia Gas saw the number of residential accounts on choice service increase by 2,800, versus the decrease of 44,500 residential accounts on choice service from March 2012 to June 2012.

Duke Energy Ohio saw the number of residential customers on choice service increase by 7,300 from June 2012 to September, essentially even with the growth seen from March 2012 to June 2012.

The September stats appear to include, for the first time, a break-out of the number of customers on choice versus and the SCO at Dominion East Ohio (though an asterisk still included in the chart does give some pause). As this data was not previously broken-out, a comparison to the choice levels at June 2012 is not available.

As a percent of eligible accounts, residential migration to choice service was as follows as of September 2012:

Columbia Gas: 37.1%

Duke Energy Ohio: 35.0%

Dominion East Ohio: see PUCO chart

Vectren Energy Delivery: 48.4%