The Commission opened a proceeding to consider proposed rules on a voluntary program to promote supplier diversity in contracting and purchasing practices of entities regulated by the Commission. The Commission intends for the proposed rules to apply to, "public service companies, electricity suppliers, gas suppliers, and any other entities under the jurisdiction of the Commission." Under the Supplier Diversity Program, "entities regulated by the Commission voluntarily will develop, implement and consistently report on their activities and accomplishments in promoting a strategy designed to create viable and prosperous minority, women, and service-disabled-veteran-owned business enterprises by providing them with the maximum opportunity to participate in and compete for contracts and subcontracts in their supply chain of goods and services."

Comments are due January 22, 2014. The Commission will conduct a rulemaking session on February 6, 2014. The full texts of the Notice of Rulemaking and Proposed Rules are available on the NEM Website.

As required by the Commission's Retail Electric Market Investigation Order, PECO filed a proposed plan for implementing seamless moves and instant connects for customers of EGSs. In order to effectuate seamless moves, PECO proposed to use a new EDI move transaction. "The move transaction will enable the EGS serving a customer's current account to move to the customer's new account without service interruption." There are a number of criteria that PECO provided that must be satisfied to permit a seamless move.

With respect to instant connects, PECO will change its current system that only permits EGS enrollment of active accounts in order to permit enrollment of pending active accounts. The process will work as follows: "When a customer contacts PECO to request a new connection, PECO will provide the new account number to the customer. At that time, PECO will also provide the customer with information about EGS enrollment options. If the customer has already chosen an EGS, the customer will be directed to contact the EGS and provide the EGS with the customer's new account number. If the customer would like to choose an EGS, but has not yet done so, the PECO Customer Service Representative will provide the customer with information about PECO's Smart Energy Choice Program (if still applicable) or direct the customer to the Pennsylvania Power Switch website." Because of regulatory notice requirements, there must be eleven days advance notice to perform an instant connect.

PECO estimates it will cost $5 million to implement seamless move and instant connect processes. It proposes to recover 50% of the costs through the POR discount rate and 50% of the costs through the Generation Supply Adjustment. PECO requests approval of the proposal by March 31, 2014, to meet a June 1, 2015, implementation date.

The full text of PECO's Proposal is available on the NEM Website.