Utility Seeks (Brief) Total Waiver Of Rule Which Requires Expedited Returns To Default Service; Longer Waiver For Accomplishing Such Via EDI

Duke Energy Ohio at the PUC of Ohio has sought a brief waiver of the new requirement -- regardless of mechanism -- to complete an expedited return of a mercantile customer to electricity default service

As previously reported, new Ohio Adm.Code 4901:1-21-21(A) provides that a request from a retail electric supplier, on behalf of a mercantile customer, for an expedited return of the customer to default service shall be made via a form developed by PUCO, "or an equivalent EDI transaction," and shall be completed by the EDC within three business days

Unlike petitions from the FirstEnergy Ohio EDCs and AEP Ohio which only sought a waiver of a requirement to complete such requests via EDI, Duke Energy Ohio is seeking a brief waiver of the requirement to accomplish an expedited return within three business days regardless of the means of accomplishing such (EDI and manual process)

Duke sought through October 19, 2026 a waiver of the requirement to complete the mercantile customer expedited return within three business days

Duke stated, "This very brief waiver period will give the Company adequate time to complete testing and validation of an interim manual expedited return process, to minimize any unintended impacts to the billing and account information of the mercantile customer being returned to SSO."

Duke further said, "As the Company’s system does not have a built-in capability to 'switch' customers in the middle of the billing cycle, executing such mid-cycle switches manually will require the Company to completely 'move out' the customer to end the supplier enrollment mid-cycle, and then to perform a 'move in' (i.e., start new service) to enroll the customer in SSO immediately. The Company is currently examining this process to determine how it may impact a customer’s account and is working on developing measures to address any potential unintended impacts. The Company believes it can have a reasonably robust manual process available by October 19, 2026."

Duke then sought a waiver until June 30, 2027 of any requirement to accomplish the expedited returns via an EDI transaction, stating that time is needed to develop the EDI transaction. Pending testing of the manual process described above, Duke would accomplish the returns during this period within 3 business days via the non-EDI manual process

PUCO Staff have recommended the grant of EDI waivers for expedited returns at the FirstEnergy Ohio EDCs and AEP Ohio, but in doing so PUCO Staff noted that those utilities have stated that they will be able to process expedited returns manually in the interim

Docket (Duke waiver request): 26-0924-EL-WVR