Pennsylvania Adopts Interim Guidelines for Customer Lists

The Pennsylvania PUC issued a final written order adopting interim guidelines for natural gas distribution company (NGDC) eligible customer lists (ECLs) made available to retail suppliers.

Generally, the PUC adopted the principles it previously adopted for electric customer lists: (1) licensed competitive suppliers should have access to the distribution utility customer lists, (2) licensed competitive suppliers are obligated to safeguard the confidentiality of customer information, and (3) all residential and small commercial customers, regardless of their personal circumstances, will have the opportunity to restrict the release of all of their account information and usage information or none of their account information except historical billing data through the use of an "opt-out" process.

Notably, the PUC decided not to include large non-residential customers in the natural gas customer lists. "It is unnecessary to mandate their inclusion in disclosing their customer information as these types of energy-intensive natural gas customers are already likely fully informed of their supplier options. Thus, the gas ECL procedures herein will only apply to residential customers and small business customers," the PUC said.

All information not restricted by the customer will be provided to the retail natural gas supplier (NGS) as part of the ECL or access to a secure website. Thus, the PUC explained, an NGDC will not withhold part of any data point such as an account number to act as a check on the veracity of a NGS's claim to serve a customer. The Commission and NGDCs have sufficient mechanisms in place to address claims of slamming, the PUC said.

The natural gas ECL customer data elements are:

1. Customer Account Number
2. Customer Name 
3. Service Address 
4. Billing Address
5. Tariff Rate Class and Schedule
6. Rate Subclass/Rate Subcode (if available)
7. Meter Read Cycle
8. SOLR/Shopping Status (Y or N)
9. Monthly Consumption (each of 12 months)(Mcf)
10. Monthly Peak Demand (each of 12 months) (Mcf/d)
      (if available)

"We already determined that customer telephone numbers are not part of the ECL for the natural gas industry," the PUC said.

"Nonetheless, we again caution NGSs, other marketers and agents that they remain subject to the provisions of the state and federal 'do not call' laws as well as our consumer protection regulations at 52 Pa. Code § 56, et seq," the PUC said.

The PUC said that all NGDCs should update their ECL on a monthly basis and then post it in a secure area on the NGDC website (or by way of an alternative method if not available to the NGDC) so the NGSs have access to it.

In addition, the PUC required NGDCs to re-solicit all of their residential and small commercial customers on a triennial basis regarding their options surrounding the disclosure of their customer information for the purposes of creating a new ECL for NGSs.

Docket M-2012-2324075