The Commission adopted a First Notice Order on electric municipal aggregation regulations. As an initial matter, the Commission answered the question of its authority to issue the rules as follows, "although the Governmental Aggregator may not be under the Commission’s jurisdiction, any electric service product that a RES or ARES proposes to offer in the State of Illinois, must conform with the law, policies and rules as promulgated by the legislature and the Commission." The Commission found that notice of Aggregation Programs to residential and small commercial RES customers was required under the law and reminded the parties that, "In order to ensure that the relationship between a customer and his/her chosen RES is respected, the Commission finds that the rules need to explicitly state that a customer must not be switched without affirmative action on his/her part, consistent with the switching rules." The rules additionally pertain to the transfer of customer information to a Governmental Aggregator by the electric utility; practices for the protection of the confidentiality of customer-specific information by an Aggregation Supplier; required notifications to be made by the Aggregation Supplier to the Commission regarding its program to be posted on the Commission website; and customer disclosures made by the Aggregation Supplier. The full text of the First Notice Order is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission has issued an Order to provide guidance to EGSs on the appropriate use of the “fixed price” label when presenting products with pass-through clauses to residential and small business electric customers. Upon consideration of comments received, and relying heavily upon the provisions of the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, the Commission has adopted a new definition of the term "fixed price" and its appropriate usage. The Commission decided that "fixed means fixed," and "that a 'fixed price' product must not change in price during the term of the agreement." To allow EGSs to mitigate the risk of this construct, "an EGS can provide for a “regulatory-out” clause that would allow an EGS to, under circumstances outlined in the clause, reformulate the contract by proposing new contract terms to the customer so long as the customer affirmatively consents. A lack of a customer response would be deemed a rejection of the new terms. In the event of a rejection by the customer, the customer is then free to pursue other opportunities in the market with no penalty." The Commission further reminded that the price that an EGS presents to a residential or small business customer should be “all-inclusive,” i.e., include all of the pricing components found in the PTC for default customers.

The Commission adopted changes to definitions in the Electric Competitive Dictionary found on PAPowerSwitch as follows:

"Fixed Price: An all-inclusive per kWh price that will remain the same for at least three billing cycles or the term of the contract, whichever is longer.

Variable Price: An all-inclusive per kWh price that can change, by the hour, day, month, etc. according to the terms and conditions in the supplier’s disclosure statement.

Introductory Price: For new customers, an all-inclusive per kWh price that will remain the same for a limited period of time between one and three billing cycles followed by a different fixed or variable per kWh price that will be in effect for the remaining billing cycles of the contract term, consistent with terms and conditions in the supplier’s “disclosure statement”."

The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.

In its recent Order on gas supplier licensing, the Commission continued its practice of exempting non-traditional marketers from obtaining a license. A petition for reconsideration was filed with the Commission regarding its revised definition of non-traditional marketer with the provision that these entities, "may not be compensated by the licensed NGS if members or constituents enroll with the licensed NGS." The Commission has now decided to delete this language from the definition of non-traditional marketer. The new definition is as follows:

"Nontraditional Marketer - A community-based organization, civic, fraternal or business association, or common interest group that works with a licensed NGS as an agent to market natural gas service to its members or constituents. A nontraditional marketer may not require its members or constitutents to obtain its natural gas service through a specific licensed NGS."

The full text of the Order on Rehearing is available on the NEM Website.