SB1, An Act Concerning Connecticut's Energy Future, was introduced in the legislature. The bill provides for a state procurement planning process for electric energy and capacity resource needs, which would utilize a portfolio of contracts to "reduce average costs" and to "maintain volatility within reasonable levels."

As to specific electric choice program issues, SB1 would:
1) retain the POR and referral programs;
2) require a review of billing and collection costs incurred by utilities for the benefit of electric suppliers and aggregators as well as a review of costs incurred by utilities for the benefit of their standard service and last resort service customers for the purpose of determining equitable recovery of those costs;
3) set forth requirements for supplier direct billing and cost allocation;
4) require supplier contracting processes and disclosures and door-to-door sales requirements;
5) set forth an early termination fee limitation for residential customers that would limit ETFs to not exceed $100 or twice the estimated bill for energy services for an average month;
6) require a customer's express consent to material changes in a contract;
7) provide that a renewal contract can be cancelled within seven business days of the first billing statement without a termination fee; and
8) require a study of Connecticut's participation in ISONE and its impact on state ratepayers.

A public hearing on SB1 is scheduled for March 15, 2011. The full text of SB1 is available on the NEM Website.

NEM filed comments in support of the proposal that Pepco implement a POR program in the District. As noted in the proposal, the Maryland Public Service Commission recently approved a POR program for Pepco. This represents an excellent opportunity for Pepco to leverage POR system implementation costs as well as experience it has gained in administering the Maryland program. Moreover, NEM noted that POR programs have been implemented in many retail choice jurisdictions and have been instrumental in supporting the growth of choice programs in those states. The full text of NEM's Comments is available on the NEM Website.

Staff previously filed a request with the Commission that it initiate a proceeding to consider the regulatory treatment to apply to the owners/operators of electric vehicle charging stations. Upon review, the Commission concluded that, "a proceeding is required to consider the regulatory treatment to be applied to the owners/operators of charging stations for plug-in electric vehicles in Maryland, and that commencing the proceeding prior to a significant influx of these vehicles into Maryland and prior to an increase in the number of installed and active charging stations in Maryland seems administratively prudent and efficient. Accordingly, the Commission initiates the above-styled proceeding to consider the regulatory treatment to be applied to the owner/operators of electric vehicle charging stations as well as persons involved in provisioning, arranging or billing these charging services."

Petitions to intervene are due March 25, 2011. Comments on the Request are due April 8, 2011, and reply comments are due April 20, 2011. A status conference will be convened on April 26, 2011. The full text of the Order Initiating Proceeding is available on the NEM Website.

NIMO made a filing on Electric Supply Cost Recovery stemming from the settlement in its most recent rate case. The NIMO filing sets forth, "proposed modifications include revising the basis for setting the retail commodity rates charged to the Company’s residential and small commercial customers(its “mass market customers”), implementing new reconciliation mechanisms for recovering electric supply costs that are not recovered by the retail commodity rates, and revising the manner in which the Company allocates the costs of procuring capacity to its supply customers."

In the filing, NIMO is proposing a number of changes to its commodity cost recovery mechanisms, including to:

"• implement a new Legacy Transition Charge (“LTC”) to recover the remaining costs and benefits of the Legacy Contracts through delivery rates;
• revise the methodology for calculating the benefit relating to serving residential customers with NYPA Hydropower, as an adjustment to the LTC;
• eliminate the DCA and CAC mechanisms and replace them with a new mechanism that will reconcile commodity costs and revenues for all commodity customers;
• change the manner in which commodity rates are determined for mass market customers from hourly NYISO Day-Ahead prices to a monthly commodity rate based on a forecast of NYISO prices for each calendar month;
• revise how capacity costs are recovered from customers; and,
• eliminate the Standard Rate Service and Market Rate Service options."

A technical conference will be convened on March 23, 2011, at 9:30AM at NIMO’s Albany office to discuss the filing. The full text of the NIMO Filing is available on the NEM Website.