Duquesne Light Seeks Temporary Waiver of Accelerated Switching Rules

Duquesne Light has requested a temporary waiver of certain elements of the Pennsylvania PUC's accelerated switching rules due to implementation of a new billing system which will delay Duquesne Light's complete compliance with the rules.

The PUC recently ordered that switches be completed within three business days, effective December 15, 2014.

Duquesne Light is implementing a new billing system scheduled to go live November 28, 2014. While Duquesne Light is in parallel making changes to accommodate accelerated switches, Duquesne Light said that it will not be able to integrate the IT changes for off-cycle switching necessary for accelerated switching until the new backoffice system is both live and stable.

Until Duquesne Light is able to make changes to completely comply with the accelerated switching rules, it proposes to offer a temporary solution which will allow a customer to complete one off-cycle switch per billing cycle, that shall be completed within three business days. An additional switch in the same billing cycle would take effect at the next scheduled meter read.

The customer will receive a single bill under the temporary accelerated switching mechanism, reflecting the times during the month the customer was on various supplier and/or default service.

This temporary accelerated switching solution would be available to 91% of Duquesne's customer base (97% of non-CAP customers). The temporary accelerated switching mechanism will not be available to CAP customers, certain Hourly Priced Service customers, unmetered customers, net-metering customers, space heating customers on Rider No. 13, and customers that receive summary bills, since such customers necessitate complex billing.

Duquesne Light is, "making every reasonable effort," to implement the temporary accelerated switching mechanism by December 15, 2014, but asked that it be granted until January 16, 2015 to implement the temporary measure to the extent the new backoffice system is not stable enough to allow implementation of the temporary accelerated switching mechanism by December 15, 2014.

If Duquesne Light does not implement the temporary accelerated switching mechanism by December 15, 2014, it proposes to implement another alternative, allowing only accelerated returns to default service, until such time as it can implement the temporary accelerated switching mechanism. Customers would be required to call Duquesne Light's call center to initiate the accelerated return to default service.

Duquesne Light anticipates that it should be fully compliant with the complete accelerated switching rules by July 31, 2015.