State May Require Retail Suppliers to Provide Pricing "Benchmarks" Under New Disclosure Label Rules

As part of a wide-ranging proceeding to update a host of retail electric market provisions, the Massachusetts DPU will consider changes to the disclosure labels required to be produced by retail electric suppliers.

"In this proceeding, the Department seeks to identify revisions to the existing information disclosure labels that will improve the usefulness of the price-related information provided to customers (particularly to residential and small C&I customers)," the DPU said.

The DPU identified the following four new types of information that the labels "could provide" for competitive supply products:

(1) the term of the contract, and whether the contract terminates on a specific date or whether it requires the customer to take affirmative action to terminate the contract;

(2) the pricing structures (e.g., fixed-price, variable-price), prices (to the extent known) in effect during the term of the contract, and the effective dates of each pricing structure;

(3) the manner in which, and timing by which, customers are informed of upcoming changes in contract prices (if applicable); and

(4) all applicable fees (e.g., early termination fees).

Finally, for competitive suppliers that offer variable-price products, the Department will, "explore additional information that the labels could provide to allow customers to evaluate competitive suppliers’ historical variable prices (e.g., price benchmarks that would allow customers to compare the variable prices with prevailing wholesale market prices at the time)."

D.P.U. 14-140

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