Sharyland Reports Suspension of Disconnects for Non-Pay in New Choice Areas Due to ESI ID Confusion

Sharyland Utilities LP issued a market notice to retail electric providers yesterday that it temporarily stopped performing disconnections for non-pay in its areas newly open to choice after it became clear that a "large majority" of the DNP requests related to customer confusion or errors regarding customers with multiple ESI IDs, which may have led customers to switch certain ESI IDs to their chosen REP, but which led to other ESI IDs for the same customers to be assigned to the default REP.

According to the market notice, "Sharyland Utilities (SU) began receiving Disconnect for Non-Pays last week and the number of DNPs began to grow quickly. SU soon became aware that a large majority of these DNPs are on premises that have multiple ESI IDs and the customer provided their selected REP only one or a portion of their ESI IDs. As a result, the customer’s other ESI IDs were assigned to a Default REP. There is concern that these DNPs are because customers did not fully understand the switching process and will result in customers without electricity in a newly opened market."

"Following discussions with PUC Staff, SU stopped performing disconnects until we were able to identify these specific customers that did not provide all their ESI IDs to their selected REP. Sharyland is ready to resume processing DNPs for single ESI IDs that do not fit this category and will begin dispatching these orders on Wednesday morning," Sharyland said in the market notice

"The multiple ESI ID situations will be handled much like an Inadvertant Gain via MarkeTrak. Those MT orders will be initiated by SU staff and connect the Default REP with the Competitive REP for these customers," Sharyland said.