The Commission has scheduled a stakeholder meeting and workshop on retail electric competition on February 25-26, 2020. Chairman Burns and the Commissioners issued lists of questions to the docket for stakeholder comment this fall. Chairman Burns and Commissioner Olson also previously indicated they would be working on a rules package for stakeholder consideration to be released in early 2020. The Commission also scheduled a stakeholder meeting and workshop on the energy rules on March 10-11, 2020. The full texts of the Retail Electric Competition Meeting Notice and Energy Rules Meeting Notice are available on the NEM Website.

The Commission's Office of Competitive Market Oversight (OCMO) will host a CHARGE workgroup livestream event (available on the Commission's website) on January 27, 2020, at 10:00AM to discuss various retail market issues. The agenda is as follows:

"1) The PUC’s Bureau of Technical Utility Services re: EGS bonding and an initiative to revise the EGS and NGS application packages.
2) PUC Secretary Rosemary Chiavetta re: keeping formal contact information up-to-date and filing procedures.
3) The PUC’s Office of Communications re: updates to PaPowerSwitch, PaGasSwitch, and the PUC’s website.
4) The PUC’s Bureau of Consumer Services re: informal complaint procedures and reporting residential door-to-door marketing activity.
5) The PUC’s Office of Competitive Market Oversight re: announcing an upcoming rulemaking to review and update the Chapter 111 Residential Supplier Marketing Regulations and inviting informal comments from stakeholders."

Regarding the rulemaking on residential supplier marketing regulations, OCMO is requesting informal comments on the following issues:

"• Telemarketing rules – see 52 Pa. Code § 111.10; including a possible reporting requirement for telemarketing analogous to the reporting requirement for door to door marketing at 52 Pa. Code § 111.14, and potential limitations on caller ID spoofing and robocalls.
• Updating the sales verification procedures at 52 Pa. Code § 111.7 to accommodate new and evolving technologies.
• Quality control and oversight of marketing vendors – see 52 Pa. Code § 111.5.
• Updating rules and guidance on the marketing of renewable energy products – see 52 Pa. Code § 54.6 and 52 Pa. Code § 75.68.
• Rules for direct mail marketing and in person marketing.
• Any need for guidance regarding residential brokering (such as disclosing how and who compensates the broker for their services; and the broker disclosing any affiliations with other suppliers, etc.).
• Possible reporting requirement regarding EGS marketing a price that is significantly higher than the current utility PTC. Including: what would be the triggering price level (such as a percent of the PTC, i.e. 150%, etc.), possible exceptions (i.e. renewable products), applicable customer classes (residential only, or also small commercial, etc.)."

Informal comments should be submitted to RA-OCMO@pa.gov by February 21, 2020.

HB206, the Virginia Energy Reform Act, was introduced in the legislature. The bill provides that "each retail customer in the Commonwealth shall have customer choice by January 1, 2022." The bill would adopt a retail electric choice market modeled on Texas. It would require delivery rate unbundling; utility provision of transmission and distribution functions and exit from retail and generation functions; competitively-provided POLR; and an independent distribution system operator. Each electric utility would be required to offer a pilot amounting to five percent of the utility's combined load of all customer classes within the state beginning on June 1, 2021. A "Price to Beat" would be established for incumbent retail electric providers providing service to residential and small commercial customers in the incumbent electric utility service area from January 1, 2022, until January 1, 2027. The Price to Beat would be set at "rates that, on a bundled basis, are six percent less than the incumbent electric utility's corresponding average residential and small commercial retail electric rates, on a bundled basis, that were in effect on January 1, 2019, adjusted to reflect the wholesale power cost basis" (which the Commission shall determine for each incumbent electric utility as of December 31, 2021).

Certification requirements for retail electric providers, including demonstration of financial, technical and managerial fitness will be established. The bill includes consumer protection provisions and a PIPP program for low income customers. The bill would require the independent distribution system operation to provide a consumer education program by January 1, 2021, on the opening of the retail electric market and available pilot programs. A system benefit fund would be established to fund authorized consumer education programs, the PIPP and weatherization program, and energy efficiency programs. The full text of the HB206 is available at this link.