Pennsylvania Affirms Allocation of Standard Offer Referral Program Costs

The Pennsylvania PUC has confirmed the allocation of non-capital costs of the Standard Offer customer referral programs at several EDCs, in ruling on default service plan compliance filings.

Specifically, at the FirstEnergy EDCs, the PUC affirmed that a fee of $30 per referred customer shall be applied to participating retail suppliers. Any costs above this level shall be recovered on a nonbypassable basis from customer classes eligible to participate in the programs.

The FirstEnergy EDCs have estimated the total cost per customer for the Standard Offer referral program as $38.58 per customer.

At PPL, non-capital costs of the Standard Offer referral program shall be recovered from retail suppliers via a fee of $28 per referred customer. A cap of $30 per referred customer still applies, but as PPL indicates that the cap will not be implicated, the PUC did not make a determination on using a nonbypassable charge for allocating any unrecovered amounts above the cap.

While PPL has reduced capital costs of the Standard Offer referral program to $195,500, the PUC remains, "concerned at the level of capital costs required for a program that may not be put in place," as the program will only proceed if suppliers agree to participate. "Since we do not have enough information at this time to validate the necessity for the $195,500, we make no determination in this proceeding regarding the appropriateness and cost recovery of the capital costs until PPL Electric's next base rate case," the PUC said.

The PUC did find that collecting Standard Offer program capital costs from customer classes ineligible to participate in the program is unreasonable.

The PUC also declined to grant PPL the desired 13 weeks for implementation of the program, noting that an agreement with a vendor contemplates that the Standard Offer program will begin August 1, which was the start date previously ordered by the PUC.

Additionally, the PUC held that PPL's current Time of Use program shall continue beyond the June 1, 2013 expiration so a collaborative may continue addressing the issue. The PUC directed PPL to conclude the collaborative and file a new TOU rate proposal within three months.