PUC Commissioner Warns Retail Suppliers Against Raising Rates To Bolster Financial Condition Due To Problems In Other Markets

During a meeting today, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Commissioner Daniel Conway warned retail suppliers in Ohio against raising rates to Ohio customers to provide revenues and bolster the supplier's financial condition to compensate for financial difficulties the supplier may have encountered in other markets

Conway said that such behavior from suppliers would cause him to question whether the supplier is continuing to meet the financial fitness and other requirements under Ohio's supplier licensing standards.

"My view on the financial capability standard that we use is, if we were to find that ... regarding any competitive supplier, that they would try to raise their prices in Ohio, to their Ohio base of customers, in an effort to bolster their financial condition and provide revenues that they can use to compensate for problems that they face that arise from circumstances outside of Ohio, in my mind, that would be something that we would need to consider in deciding whether to continue to regard that competitive supplier as being capable financially to continue to do business in Ohio," Conway said

Conway said his message to suppliers is that they should think "hard and long" prior to engaging in such behavior of raising Ohio customer rates to provide revenue to cover financial difficulties encountered in other markers

Conway's comments were made in addressing an order relating to the recent default of Entrust Energy at PJM, though Conway said that he was not stating that this behavior occurred with respect to Entrust. See our prior story on Entrust's default and drop to customers to default service