The Commission opened a review of the electric Standard Offer Service process and whether changes to the process were warranted. Factors that the Commission should consider in undertaking the review include: "that the price for SOS will not hinder the development of a competitive electricity supply market in the District, provide appropriate SOS contract lengths, protect against any SOS provider's failure to provide service, ensure an appropriate rate design, provide for a contingency plan in the event of insufficient or inadequate bids, and determine the threshold financial viability of wholesale bidders."

In order to perform this review, the Commission requested comment on the following questions:

"* Should Pepco continue to act as the SOS provider or
should the Commission choose another option for providing SOS?
* Should the Administrative Charge be modified? The Administrative Charge is the mechanism by which the SOS provider recovers its incremental costs for procuring and providing SOS. These costs, include, but are not limited to, uncollectibles, the Commission's Market Monitoring Consultant costs, wholesale bidding expenses, working capital expenses, wholesale supply transaction costs related to wholesale supplier administration and transmission service administration, wholesale payment and invoice processing, incremental billing process expenses, customer education costs, incremental system costs, and legal and regulatory filing expenses related to SOS requirements.
* Should the adder be eliminated? The purpose of the adder is to reflect the retail electricity suppliers' marketing costs in SOS rates in order to ensure that the suppliers are not placed at a competitive disadvantage.
* Should the SOS provider continue to be compensated for the costs of administrating SOS through a margin that is calculated on a volumetric, per kilowatt hour charge basis or instead be paid on an annual fixed-cost basis? Is a volumetric, per kilowatt hour charge consistent with the goal of energy efficiency?
* Should the Market Price Service ("MPS") rate structure be changed to better reflect real market conditions by eliminating the provision mandating that the MPS price cannot go below the SOS price at any time?
* Should a peak load ceiling for large commercial SOS customers be established where large commercial users would be eligible only for hourly priced service? If a peak load ceiling is established, what should be the peak load ceiling.? For example, this ceiling could be set at a peak load of 600 kilowatts.
* Currently, the SOS provider procures one (1) year SOS electricity contracts for the large commercial customer load and three (3) year SOS electricity contracts for the small commercial and residential
customer load. Should the length of these contracts
be changed? If so, why?
* Currently, the bidding for SOS is scheduled on an
annual basis with two bid days, one in December and one in January. Should the bidding be scheduled differently and if so, what schedule should be used for the bidding? For example, there could be a larger spread between bid dates, as in Maryland where they procure most residential SOS in October and April.
* Currently, SOS is procured using a sealed-bid auction format. Should the bidding method be changed. If so, what bidding method should be used and why? For example, a reverse descending clock auction could be an alternative bidding method.
* Is there any other aspect of the SOS program that should be changed in light of competitive developments in the District of Columbia?"

Comments are due March 4, 2013, and reply comments are due March 18, 2013. The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.

ConEd submitted a new electric, natural gas, and steam rate filing to the Commission. ConEd proposes the rates to become effective January 1, 2014. While the filing is a one-year rate plan, ConEd indicated it wished to explore a multi-year rate plan with the stakeholders. The filing is focused on ConEd's plan to make infrastructure improvements to reduce storm outages and improve and expedite recovert efforts in view of recent Hurricane Sandy. ConEd is seeking a $375 million electric delivery revenue increase. ConEd notes its expectation that customer bills will be reduced upon the expiration of certain non-utility generation contracts. ConEd is seeking an increase in gas delivery revenues of $25 million. The full text of the ConEd Rate Filing is available at this hotlink.