Retail Market "Enhancements" Included in FirstEnergy EDCs' Default Service Plan

The FirstEnergy Ohio electric distribution companies included several retail market "enhancements" as part of their electric security plan filing covering the period beginning June 1, 2016, but most of the enhancements are required under PUCO's retail market investigation order, and those which were not previously ordered to be implemented are underwhelming.

Most notable, in that the change was not required by the state's retail market investigation, is that the FirstEnergy utilities are proposing to terminate the required minimum stay on the Standard Service Offer for customers returning to the SSO.

Two other changes not specifically proposed as retail market enhancements are also notable. First, the EDCs propose to eliminate current Time-of-Day provision in Rider GEN and are not proposing to renew the Experimental Real Time Pricing Rider (Rider RTP) and Experimental Critical Peak Pricing Rider (Rider CPP). These utility-offered time-based generation rate options are not necessary in light of competitive alternatives, the EDCs said.

Additionally, the EDCs propose that the load of Percentage of Income Payment Plan customers will be included in the load procured through descending clock SSO auctions, rather than served bilaterally by an affiliate.

The EDCs proposed a plan to include the logo of a shopping customer’s provider on utility-issued consolidated bills. However, as noted by RetailEnergyX.com today, the companies' proposal at the very least does not bring logo parity to the bill, and does not appear to fully comply with PUCO's directive in the retail market order.

The EDCs also propose to continue providing enhanced customer data and information and web-based access to such information to retail suppliers, addressing several items identified in the Commission’s retail market investigation.

The following types of information will be available on the supplier web portal:

• 20 digit EDI enrollment number;

• Account number;

• Meter number;

• Customer name;

• Customer address, including Zip Code;

• Billing address, including Zip Code;

• Email address (if available);

• Meter reading cycle dates;

• Meter type;

• Interval meter indicator;

• Rate code indicator;

• Load profile segment indicator;

• Peak Load Contribution (PLC) and Network Service Peak Load (NSPL) Values;

• 12 months of consumption data (in kWh) by billing period;

• 12 months of demand data (in kW);

• 12 months of interval data (if applicable);

• SSO customer indicator;

• Budget billing plan indicator;

• Future PLC and NSPL values;

• Smart meter indicator;

• Interval data for interval metered customers;

• Net metering indicator; and

• Service voltage