New York PSC Denies ESCO Petition To Allow Green Gas Products

The New York PSC denied a petition from ESCOs to allow retail suppliers to offer green natural gas products to mass market customers without being subject to the pricing limits otherwise applicable to mass market service

A written order was not immediately available, but the PSC's action was apparent from discussion during the consent agenda, in which Commissioner Diane Burman dissented from the PSC's green gas decision

The petition had proposed to allow all ESCOs to offer, to all customers eligible to receive ESCO service, a qualifying green gas product, as proposed in the petition, on a going-forward basis (as previously reported, the PSC also recently terminated waivers that had allowed certain specific ESCOs to offer legacy green gas products to a subset of customers)

The PSC's order denies ESCOs' petition to approve three types of green gas products: a carbon offset product; a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) product, and a Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) based green gas product.

ESCOs had proposed that, under each green gas product, ESCOs would have to offset at least 50% of a customer's usage, with higher levels (such as 100%) also available.