New York Utility To "Limit" Amount Of Change In Bypassable Supply Rate From Revised ZEC Cost

Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. has filed at the New York PSC for a revision to the Clean Energy Standard Supply (CESS) Surcharge, part of the bypassable Market Supply Charge, with the calculation of the revision intended, in part, to, "limit the change in the rate on customers resulting from this filing."

O&R explained that, on March 27, 2020, the Company made its annual filing to establish the CESS Surcharge for the period April 1, 2020 through March 31, 2021. At the time of filing, the forecasted ZEC (zero emissions credit) cost for the period April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, was estimated at $4,559,530. The updated ZEC cost has increased to $6,181,490.

On the one hand, O&R is making the instant filing now to adjust the ZEC component, "[i]n order to limit the magnitude of the reconciliation in next year’s reconciliation filing," and, in other words, recognize (part of) the changed cost sooner.

"[H]owever, in order to limit the change in the rate on customers resulting from this filing, the Company has calculated the revised ZEC component of the CESS Surcharge rate based on collecting the $6,181,490 over the original 12 month period ending March 31, 2021 (i.e., the Company has not included any true-up for the months where the rate was based on the originally filed ZEC cost of $4,559,530)," O&R said

"Accordingly, the ZEC component of the CESS Surcharge shall be set at 0.322 cents per kWh for the four-month period commencing December 1, 2020. Adding this revised ZEC component with the existing components of the CESS Surcharge results in a combined CESS Surcharge of 0.373 cents per kWh that will be reflected commencing on the December 2020 Statement of Market Supply Charge," O&R said

The revised CESS would be in place for the period December 1, 2020 through March 31, 2021.

Currently, the CESS (aka ZEC/REC Component of the MSC) is 0.286 cents per kWh

As previously reported, the New York PSC has ruled two of the limited products ESCOs may offer to mass market customers are products that either (1) includes a guaranteed savings over the utility price, as reconciled on an annual basis; or (2) is fixed-rate commodity product that is priced at no more than 5% greater than the trailing 12-month average utility supply rate