AEP Ohio To Change Retail Supplier Tariffs To Prevent Suppliers From Billing Prior-Period Energy Usage Amounts Not Settled In PJM

As part of its requested extension of its electric security plan, AEP Ohio has sought changes to its tariffs governing retail suppliers to, "prevent[] suppliers from billing customers for prior-period energy usage amounts not settled in the PJM market, and for which there is no path for resettlement."

AEP Ohio specifically proposes a modification to both AEP Ohio’s Open Access Distribution (OAD) Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) and to AEP Ohio’s CRES Provider Agreement For Ohio Power Company’s Ohio Retail Access Program, "to recognize the limitations of PJM’s energy market, which confines energy metering and system error corrections to the 60-day final settlement true-up period."

"More specifically, there is currently no defined path to resettle errors discovered after the 60-day final settlement true-up period. PJM does support the exchange of debits and credits among market participants on their bills, but only where all affected participants reach bilateral agreements between each other. Accordingly, errors that require corrections to UFE [Unaccounted For Energy] for prior periods to the 60-day final settlement true-up require consensus of over forty CRES providers in AEP Ohio’s load zone, which is logistically challenging without more structure from PJM," AEP Ohio said.

The specific language AEP Ohio is seeking to add to the various retail supplier tariffs and T&Cs states, "PJM performs settlements for transmission, capacity and energy obligations for CRES provider market participation on predefined intervals using metered customer load obligations and daily CRES Provider customer enrollment obligation data provided by AEP Ohio. AEP Ohio will make a best effort providing accurate load and customer obligation data. Energy is initially settled by PJM day-after load for CRES Providers, called 'Settlement A.' After final readings are available to AEP Ohio, supplier load obligation variances are reported to PJM, and PJM performs a final 60-Day energy settlement for the market, called 'Settlement B.' Until such time PJM establishes processes outside of the 60-day final settlement process, any errors identified outside of this 60-day process are considered closed and no corrected billing shall be performed by the CRES Provider, or on behalf of the CRES Provider by AEP Ohio for their assigned customers."