New Hampshire Closes Investigation of POR, Will Open New Proceeding on Payment Hierarchy

The New Hampshire PUC has approved a request to close an investigation of purchase of receivables, without prejudice, and has also agreed to open a new proceeding regarding payment hierarchy.

As first reported by Matters, retail suppliers had recommended closing the POR proceeding without prejudice to allow further development of POR programs in Massachusetts, which may be leveraged in New Hampshire given that two of the New Hampshire utilities have affiliates which will be implementing POR in Massachusetts.

With the suggested closure of the POR proceeding, the Office of the Consumer Advocate and Staff jointly filed a recommendation that the Commission open a proceeding to investigate the merits of establishing a payment hierarchy between distribution utilities and competitive suppliers.

The Staff/OCA recommendation noted that where a competitive supplier has elected to bill for electric supply through the distribution utility, the current payment hierarchy allows the distribution utility to apply the full amount of a planned payment or partial payment to its own past-due and current amounts before applying the payment to the competitive suppliers' past-due and current amounts. Staff and the OCA argued that this practice confuses customers and leads to dissatisfaction with their distribution utility and competitive supplier.

Establishing a more "equitable" payment hierarchy would, according to Staff and the OCA, benefit those customers who are paying in accordance with a payment arrangement or budget payment plan inasmuch as they would no longer receive collection notices from a supplier. In addition, competitive suppliers would benefit with, "less lag between the provision of service and receipt of payment."

The PUC agreed to open a proceeding to investigate the merits of establishing a payment hierarchy between distribution utilities and competitive suppliers in New Hampshire.