Utility Reports Accelerated Switching To Be Delayed For Some Customers

Pepco, in the District of Columbia, reported that, upon final tariff approval, it can generally implement accelerated switching by the end of October 2019, but said that a delay will be required for customers with net metering

The D.C. PSC's rules adopted in December 2018 require that 3-day accelerated switching shall be implemented by September 10, 2019. Pepco has filed a compliance tariff whose approval is still outstanding

Pepco said in a filing with the D.C. PSC that, "Due to resource issues, and in order to perform proper testing prior to implementation of accelerated switching, Pepco will require additional time to comply with Rule 4105.9. Based on the current amount of work that is required and assuming no further emergent issues develop, Pepco anticipates that accelerated switching can be implemented in the District by the end of October 2019 for most customers."

"However, for Net Energy Metering (NEM) customers that switch, additional complexities have arisen due to the fact that some of these customers may have net exports throughout the month, and Pepco needs to ensure that its systems' internal logic is developed throughout the month, and Pepco needs to ensure that its systems' internal logic is developed to properly capture usage to send to suppliers for billing in the event that an NEM customer switches suppliers mid-billing period. The logic for this scenario has not been developed or tested, and necessarily must be developed after the testing for the general accelerated switching that can be implemented by the end of October 2019," Pepco said

"Thus, for this subset of NEM customers that switch third-party suppliers, Pepco is requesting that accelerated switching be delayed until March 2020," Pepco said

"Pepco recognizes that the Commission is still considering Pepco's proposed Tariff changes to comply with Order No. 19761 [accelerated switching] and, thus, that this letter may not be necessary given that Pepco cannot implement accelerated switching until its Tariff changes have been approved. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution and due to the additional issues arising out of accelerated switching for NEM customers, Pepco wanted to explain the status of its efforts and request waiver, as needed," Pepco said