Texas REPs, PUC Staff, OPUC Oppose Sharyland Petition to Sever AMS Surcharge, Move Forward With Review of Other AMS Deployment Items

Texas retail electric providers, Staff of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and the Texas Office of Public Utility Counsel all opposed, in separate comments, Sharyland Utilities' petition to unabate its AMS deployment docket, and to move forward with its deployment plan and non-AMS surcharge issues, with the AMS surcharge issue deferred and adjudicated in a separate proceeding.

"Unbundling the components of Sharyland's application in a manner that allows final resolution of certain AMS issues now while deferring final resolution of other AMS issues to a later date would compromise the Commission's ability to holistically decide all of the AMS issues presented and litigated in this proceeding," retail electric providers said

While Sharyland cited the benefits of AMS deployment as auguring for resolution of its deployment plan (sans AMS surcharge), Texas PUC Staff said that such benefits were known by the Commission when the Commission elected to abate the case. "[I]t is apparent that the Commission fully considered all the issues in its decision. Specifically, the Commission raised the benefits of AMS during the discussion, and was aware of the issues raised in Sharyland's motion," Staff said

While Sharyland offered to include additional testing (but not a full pilot) as part of its petition to unabate the proceeding, OPUC noted that Sharyland, "only states that the Company will be testing 'remote capability' and will not be sending AMS data to the market during the test."

"[G]iven that the Company has stated that it will not send AMS data to the market during the test, it does not appear that Sharyland's limited testing will address any potential issues related to the AMS activation. Thus, while Sharyland's proposal to perform limited testing prior to its AMS deployment is a step in the right direction, it is not a sufficient basis for approving the Company's proposed deployment plan in this proceeding," OPUC said