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April 9, 2010
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 | Nexant Joins NEM Executive Committee | |
| NEM is pleased to announce that Nexant, the global provider of intelligent grid software and clean energy solutions has rejoined NEM's Executive Committee. Nexant will be represented within NEM by Stu Young, Senior Vice President and Rob Roy, Regional Sales Director. Please help us welcome Nexant into the Association.
Last year Nexant acquired Excelergy. Excelergy has transitioned their business operations, staff and contractual obligations to Nexant, operating as an enhanced business unit within Nexant. As part of that transition, Excelergy’s membership with NEM has been transitioned to Nexant. The acquisition of Excelergy allows Nexant to consolidate all of Excelergy’s highly sophisticated software applications into Nexant, and to strengthen its market position in the retail energy business in North America and Europe.
Nexant is based in San Francisco and has offices in 24 countries around the world. Operations of the former Excelergy business remain in Lexington, Massachusetts, near Boston. Nexant is known for its flagship enterprise software products, including RevenueManagerTM and HedgeDirectTM. As part of the transaction, Nexant gained 45 new employees and major clients in seven countries. Key personnel transitioning to Nexant included Stu Young, Rob Roy, Tanya Shepherd and Rudolf Das. | |
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| NEM's 13th Annual National Energy Restructuring Conference | |
| NEM's 13th Annual National Energy Restructuring Conference - NEM will convene its 13th Annual National Energy Restructuring Conference at the Embassy Suites Hotel Washington D.C. Convention Center on April 27th & 28th, 2010. This year’s theme is “Renaissance in Energy Markets.” Topics of discussion will include Competitive Energy Supply, Demand, Prices and Economic Opportunities. Please use this hotlink to register for the event.
We have already confirmed a number of key regulators and legislators and this promises to be a "can't miss" event. Confirmed participants include: Congressman James Clyburn, Majority Whip (D-SC); U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind-VT); Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) (invited); Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) (invited); Congressman Glenn Thompson, Jr. (R-PA); Jon Wellinghoff, FERC Chairman; Daniel Poneman, Deputy Secretary of Energy; Marc Spitzer, FERC Commissioner; Philip Moeller, FERC Commissioner; James Cawley, PAPUC Chairman; Alan Schriber, OH PUC Chairman; Douglas Nazarian, MDPSC Chairman; Manuel Flores, ICC Chairman; Orjiakor Osiogu, MIPSC Chairman; David Armstrong, KYPSC Chairman; Sharon Reishus, ME PUC Chairman; Betty Ann Kane, DCPSC Chairman; Erin O'Connell Diaz, ICC Commissioner; Catherine Pugh, MD State Senator; Jess Totten, TX PUC Director; Eric Matheson, PAPUC Energy Advisor; and Calvin Timmerman, MDPSC. | |
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| NEM Comments on Draft National Action Plan on Demand Response | |
| NEM filed comments on Commission Staff’s Draft National Action Plan on Demand Response. The National Action Plan was required under Section 529 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. It sets forth a strategic vision in which a Coalition would be formed to assist a federal government agency in implementing the National Action Plan. In order to maximize U.S. cost-effective demand response resources, the National Action Plan recognizes two paths of action, namely, enabling price-responsive demand response and facilitating market penetration of emerging smart grid technologies and resources. The National Action Plan then delineates strategies and activities for achieving those two paths through: 1) technical assistance to the states; 2) a national communications program; and 3) identification or development of tools and materials for use by customers, states and demand response providers. NEM strongly supported the goals and activities recommended in the National Action Plan for facilitating the increased availability of demand response resources.
NEM recommended that the National Action Plan explicitly recognize the following:
1) Competitive retail energy marketers and representative organizations should be explicitly included in the list of coalition participants;
2) Transitional retail demand response load profiles should be included amongst the demand response estimation tools and methods enumerated in the National Action Plan; and
3) The role of competitive retail energy marketers in providing both dispatchable and non-dispatchable demand response programs in the marketplace should be acknowledged and supported in the National Action Plan.
The full texts of NEM's Comments and NEM's White Paper entitled, “Achieving Significant, Near-Term Demand Response by Residential and Small-Commercial Customers” are available on the NEM Website. | |
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 Connecticut
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| Substitute Bills on Electric Choice | |
| The legislature continues to consider bills that would significantly harm the competitive retail electric market.
The relevant provision of Substitute Bill 5507 include: 1) elimination of the referral program, 2) elimination of the quarterly inclusion of suppliers’ offers with the utility bill, 3) elimination of POR, 4) requiring electric brokers to be certified with the DPUC just as aggregators are now, 5) elimination of utility consolidated billing or requiring suppliers to pay utilities a fee plus a rate of return, and 6) restrictions on door-to-door marketing.
The relevant provisions of Substitute Bill 5505 include: 1) elimination of the POR program (although retaining the referral program and quarterly provision of supplier offers in utility bills), 2) imposition of a minimum stay provision of one year for any customer wanting to switch back to the utility from a marketer or switch to another marketer. Otherwise, they have to pay a fee. | |
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| CL&P Files New Pricing Options Proposal | |
| CL&P filed new proposed pricing options with the DPUC, including a change in its pricing structure beginning in 2012 to institute a tiered system with a ratio of 10 to one between peak and off-peak hours. The proposal is one of three new pricing options under the utility's Plan-it Wise Energy program. All of the utility's customers will have the choice to sign up for either Peak Time Pricing or a four hour Time of Use rate. Low income customers would be provided with a Peak Time rebate option as well. CL&P proposes to provide hourly energy information to customers via its website and the expansion of information on their monthly bills. CL&P requested cost recovery of $296 million in capital costs for smart metering technology needed to deploy the pricing system. | |
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 Maryland
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| Meeting on BGE Electric POR Proposal | |
| The Commission reviewed BGE's electric POR plan at its agenda meeting this week. BGE’s proposed electric POR discount rates in the revised plan include an uncollectible expense component, program development component, operation cost, and risk component. The resultant discount rates are 1.39% for residential customers, 1.27% for POLR Type I customers, 0.68% for POLR Type II customers, and 0.24% for Hourly-Service customers.
At the agenda meeting, the Commission examined in-depth Staff's recommended adjustments to the BGE discount rates used such as adjustments to uncollected costs for late fee revenue, adjustments to the class allocations of POR implementation costs, and updated choice enrollments. The resultant discount rates with Staff's adjustments were 0.5055% for residential customers, 0.3570% for POLR Type I customers, 0.2116% for POLR Type II customers, and 0.0460% for Hourly-Service customers. Because of an error in its cash working capital calculation, Staff will be submitting revised discount rate calculations. With the methodological adjustments, Staff recommended acceptance of the BGE POR plan. The Commission also discussed the proposal that BGE purchase outstanding receivables as part of its POR program, in order to smooth the transition and minimize the likelihood of consumer confusion caused by differing billing regimes. The full text of Staff's Comments and NEM's Comments are available on the NEM Website. | |
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 Pennsylvania
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| ANOPR on Electric Utilities Code of Conduct | |
| The Commission issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking to review the existing Code of Conduct for the electric utilities. The Code is intended to prevent the electric utilities, "from giving improper preferences to affiliated EGSs in the competitive retail market." Comments are requested on appropriate revisions to the Code, including how well it has operated to date, whether the existing language should be amended and why, and whether there are other areas that the Code should address. The proceeding will also include a review of similar regulations in other jurisdictions with retail electric choice to develop best practices on these issues. Comments are due May 18, 2010. The full text of the ANOPR is available on the NEM Website. | |
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