New Normal: Second Pennsylvania Utility Now Seeing Decline in Residential Shopping

A week after Duquesne Light saw its first decline in residential shopping on a weekly basis in some two years, PPL has recorded a loss in residential shoppers, according to the March 13 stats from the Pennsylvania PUC.

Link to PUC's 3/6/13 Weekly Migration Report

Matters has also developed a comparison of the migration levels from the 3/6/13 Report to the 3/13/13 Report.

Link to Matters' Comparison of Weekly Migration

Specifically, PPL saw a net loss of 64 residential customers on competitive supply from March 3 to March 9. That compares to growth of 230 residential shoppers in the prior week.

In the aggregate, Pennsylvania saw another week of meager residential shopping growth. From about March 7 to March 13 (reporting date varies slightly by utility), the state, in aggregate, saw growth in residential shopping of only 3,700 accounts, up from the anemic week-ago growth of 2,300 but still only one-third of the growth levels seen in late 2012.

Matters has previously examined the slowdown in migration in light of the PUC's minimal changes to the retail market structure as contained in its end-state retail market order (see prior story)

Specifically, the weekly net growth (loss) in residential shoppers at each utility from about March 7 to about March 13 was as follows:

Duquesne Light         588
Met-Ed               1,027
PECO                 1,371
Penelec                432
Penn Power             109
PPL                    (64)
West Penn Power        247