Texas Staff Seek Good Cause Exception to Assign POLR Responsibility at Sharyland Utilities

Staff of the Public Utility Commission of Texas have petitioned for a good cause exception to P.U.C. SUBST. R. 23.43, in order to assign the non-volunteer POLR (LSP) responsibility for 2015-16 at Sharyland Utilities, LP.

Under the process contemplated by rule, eligibility to be designated as a non-volunteer POLR is based on load served in a customer class and TDU area for the annual period ending March 31 of the current year.

However, for Sharyland Utilities, no competitive load was being served until the territory opened to retail choice on May 1; therefore, no REPs would meet non-volunteer POLR eligibility requirements based on data as of March 31, 2014.

Therefore, Staff requested a good cause exception to P.U.C. SUBST. R. 25.43(h)(1) to allow the information used to select the POLRs for the newly competitive Sharyland service area to be based on an ERCOT-wide basis, rather than by each TDU service area.

Staff proposes to aggregate the information provided by the REPs for all the other service areas pursuant to P.U.C. SUBST. R. 25.43(h)(1) to determine on an ERCOT-wide basis which REPs would be eligible to serve as a POLR. Staff would then determine which of these eligible REPs are actually operating in the newly-competitive Sharyland divisions, and designate these REPs as POLRs for that service area.

This process is similar to the procedure used to select the "default" REPs in the Sharyland Utilities transition to competition.

Docket 42693