Pennsylvania Utility Seeks Authority To Extend Current Default Service Rates For Additional Three Months (Skip Scheduled Change)

The UGI electric and natural gas utilities in Pennsylvania have petitioned the Pennsylvania PUC for waivers authorizing the utilities to maintain their current default service rates through November 30, 2017, rather than enacting scheduled changes otherwise required on September 1, 2017, and, for electricity, to extend the period of time for any subsequent reconciliation.

The UGI utilities are seeking the authority to skip the September 1 default service rate changes due to a new billing system transition.

UGI Utilities - Gas Division, UGI Penn Natural Gas, and UGI Central Penn Gas are required to update their Purchased Gas Cost (PGC) on September 1. UGI Utilities - Electric Division is required to update its Generation Supply Service Rider 1 (GSR-1), for non-hourly customers, on September 1. All four utilities sought waivers to not change such default service rates on September 1, and to maintain their supply rates as last changed on June 1

"The Companies are in the process of implementing a new Customer Information System ('UNITE') that impacts, among other things, the billing systems for all of the Companies. The Companies currently intend to shut down their existing legacy customer information systems on September 1, 2017, and go-live with UNITE on September 5, 2017. Going live with the new UNITE system is a very complex cut-over process and is one that presents substantial challenges for the Companies. Implementing a rate change during the transition process presents additional risk that can be mitigated by suspending the rate changes that would otherwise become effective on September 1, 2017. Because these rate changes are related to PGC and GSR-1 reconcilable rate mechanisms, the impact of such rate change suspension will be one that rolls forward related over/under collections existing as of September 1, 2017, to the subsequent quarterly recalculation period on December 1, 2017," the utilities said in their filing.

"Therefore, the Companies respectfully request one-time waivers of the quarterly filing requirements for the PGC and GSR-1 rates effective September 1, 2017, and propose that the current PGC and GSR-1 rates, which became effective June 1, 2017, remain in effect for the three-month period commencing September 1, 2017 through November 30, 2017," the utilities said in their filing.

Any differences in the revenues recovered under the PGC charges and GSR-1 rate and the costs incurred during that three-month period would start to be recovered (or refunded) in the PGC charges and GSR-1 rate effective December 1, 2017.

However, UGI Electric is also seeking a waiver of its tariff to allow it to collect or refund these over/under collections over a six-month period, instead of a three-month period.

UGI said in its filing that a six-month reconciliation period would, "mitigate potential rate volatility."

The UGI natural gas utilities will refund or collect over/under collections over a 12-month period under their existing tariffs without a need for any waiver.

"Considering only one quarterly rate adjustment would have otherwise occurred during the June to December 2017 period, the Companies do not anticipate that any over or under recoveries will be significant - particularly for the PGC rate as the fiscal quarter beginning September 1, 2017, is a low PGC sales volume period," UGI said in its filing.

"[T]he Companies will monitor over/under collection balances during the September 1, 2017- November 30, 2017 time period. Should an unusual market event occur that significantly affects energy prices, the Companies can consider making an interim filing to adjust rates. See e.g., 66 Pa. C.S. § 1307(f)(1)(i). The Companies do not anticipate such a market event at this time," UGI said in its filing.