New York Orders Interim Adjustment to Consolidated Edison Supply Rate to Reflect Reduced Cashout Payments From ESCOs

The New York PSC has accepted a joint proposal from Consolidated Edison and ESCOs concerning adjustments to cashouts for the first three months of 2014, but directed that the resulting impact on default service customers' commodity costs shall be implemented immediately, rather than through ConEd's next gas reconciliation filing.

As previously reported by EnergyChoiceMatters.com, the joint proposal reduces by $13.7 million, in the aggregate, the cashout obligations of marketers with net deficiency imbalances for January, February and/or March 2014 that would be credited to ConEd full service customers

As more fully discussed in our prior story (click here), the joint proposal addresses the combination of colder-than-normal weather in January, February, and March, which, coupled with an increasing percentage of firm transportation customers with no historical billing data (e.g., higher numbers of new accounts), resulted in differentials between marketer deliveries and actual usage by firm transportation customers that fell significantly outside the range of historical differentials.

The PSC accepted the joint proposal, but directed that ConEd should not wait until its next gas reconciliation filing (for the 12 months ending August 31, 2015) to reflect the impact that adjusted cashout payments will have on the commodity cost of full service customers.

"It is more reasonable for Con Edison to address this through an interim adjustment," the PSC said.

"Therefore, Con Edison shall address the adjustment resulting from the re-calculated cashout obligations through an interim adjustment to the rate submitted in Case 14-G-0325 beginning with the first billing cycle in February 2015. The interim adjustment will continue throughout the remainder of 2015," the PSC said.

Case 14-G-0138