Witness Alleges Former Supplier Employer Decided Company Could "Ignore" Do Not Call Registry For Customers Served Under Default Service Retail Auction Process

A witness for the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, who formerly worked for several retail energy suppliers, alleged in testimony before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio that a former supplier employer had decided that it could "ignore" the national do-not-call registry for those customers the supplier was serving under the Standard Choice Offer auction and assignment process, because the SCO established a business relationship with the customer

The OCC witness, Michael P. Haugh, was testifying in support of transitioning Duke Energy Ohio to a wholesale Standard Service Offer (SSO) auction for natural gas default service, as proposed by Duke and supported by PUCO Staff, and against a retail Standard Choice Offer auction

See background on Duke's proposed transition to an SSO, from the current gas cost recovery mechanism for default service, here

Haugh alleged in testimony that, "One energy marketer that I worked for decided that it could ignore the national do-not-call registry because technically they were doing business with the consumers assigned to them even though most of those consumers had no idea who was supplying their natural gas and had no prior direct interactions with the marketers."

Haugh also cited shadow billing data provided by utilities to the OCC as indicating customers under competitive retail supply paid more than default service

Haugh stated, "Marketers’ rates, in the aggregate, have been higher than utility standard offer rates across Ohio. OCC receives shadow billing data from AEP Ohio since January 2019, Duke Gas since January 2019, and Columbia Gas of Ohio since April of 1997. Shadow billing data shows the aggregate dollar amount shopping customers paid versus being on the utility default rate. AEP Ohio shows cumulative losses of $179 million for its shopping customers. (Attachment MPH-2), Duke shows cumulative losses of $53 million for its shopping customers. (Attachment MPH-3). The most shocking is Columbia Gas of Ohio that shows cumulative loses [sic] of over $2 billion. (Attachment MPH-4). This should not be a total shock because Columbia’s data cover almost 25 years, but it should be noted that only 70 months have shown savings for those shopping 19 and 54 of them were in the first 4½ years."

While the aggregate cost of retail gas supply versus default service at Duke is $53 million from January 2019 to February 2022 per OCC's data, retail supplier customers in aggregate have paid less than default service in every month from June 2021 to February 2022 (the most recent month of data), for a cumulative savings of about $19 million over the period. For all of these months from June 2021 to February 2022, the OCC exhibit includes a note stating, "GCR temporary increase related to February 2021 Texas weather event."

As noted above, PUCO Staff supports an SSO auction, and submitted testimony to such effect

Case 21-0903-GA-EXM