State Proposes Revisions To Retail Suppliers' Renewable Energy Disclosures

The Massachusetts DPU has issued a proposal revising the renewable energy disclosure requirements applicable to retail electric suppliers, and associated reporting requirements

Currently, suppliers are required to provide customers with an environmental disclosure label every quarter, in addition to disclosure at service initiation. The proposal would change the distribution of the environmental disclosure label to an annual requirement, instead of quarterly, in addition to disclosure at service initiation

Suppliers would be permitted to provide customers with the environmental disclosure label via U.S. mail or email. Currently, the DPU does not specify the mechanism through which the environmental disclosure label shall be provided to customers.

Additionally, for "voluntary" renewable energy products, the DPU would require suppliers to categorize renewable as either RPS Class I resources or other renewable resources (i.e., non-RPS Class I resource)

The DPU also proposes more extensive reporting of suppliers' environmental labeling to the DPU. The Department said that it recognizes that the proposal increases the information that competitive suppliers must include in their annual report to document the accuracy of the environmental attribute information disclosed to customers

Specifically, the DPU proposes that suppliers include in their annual report a product summary sheet that lists information about each of their electric supply products. For each product, the proposed annual reports must include: (1) the annual environmental attribute disclosure label for the applicable calendar year, and (2) the annual NEPOOL-GIS Report that summarizes the information included on the four quarterly reports. For those competitive suppliers that provide voluntary renewable energy products, the annual report must include, for each such product, a certificate summary sheet that documents that the environmental attribute information disclosed to customers was based solely and accurately on the NEPOOL-GIS reports (and/or reports from other tracking entities) and the competitive supplier’s sales during the applicable calendar year. Finally, those competitive suppliers that provide multiple products must include in their annual reports a statement of attestation regarding the accuracy of the sales assigned to each product.

Docket 14-140