The Department recently ordered that the basic service bill recalculation provision be eliminated for residential and small C&I customers, including those served under municipal aggregation programs. Certain utility commenters had suggested in that inquiry that the provision be retained for customers served under a municipal aggregation program. In response to that suggestion, the Department is now requesting comments on the issue. Specifically, "to strike a balance between minimizing customer confusion and dissatisfaction with bill recalculation and mitigating potential cost shifts to other customers, the Department proposes to not apply the bill recalculation requirement for customers that are automatically switched from basic service to competitive supply at the initiation of a municipal aggregation program if the municipality initiates its municipal aggregation program coincident with a residential and small C&I basic service term. The Department recognizes that in this scenario the municipal aggregation is not attempting to "game the system;" accordingly, it is appropriate to eliminate bill recalculation under this scenario. The Department, however, considers it appropriate to continue to apply the bill recalculation requirement if the municipality initiates its program at another point during a residential and small C&I basic service term. Maintaining the bill recalculation provision in these instances mitigates the potential to shift significant costs to other customers." Comments are due June 5, 2015. The full text of the Request for Comments is available on the NEM Website.

NYSEG/RGE made a proposed rate filing with the Commission seeking a decrease in delivery rates for RG&E Electric and an increase in delivery rates for NYSEG Electric, NYSEG Gas and RG&E Gas. “NYSEG Electric’s proposed annual revenue would increase $126.3 million/7% overall and RG&E Electric’s proposed annual revenue would decrease $10.2 million/(1%) overall. For the gas businesses, NYSEG Gas’ proposed annual revenue would increase $37.8 million/8% overall, and RG&E Gas’ proposed revenue would increase $20.3 million/5% overall. To the extent that a multi-year settlement plan could be successfully negotiated, further moderation of the rate increases would be possible.” The effective dates of the new rates would be April 20, 2016.

With regard to competitive market issues, NYSEG/RGE propose a change to the MFC process to change the calculation of the credit and collection/call center (CCCC) expense component, in which they would break the link between the CCCC used for the MFC rate and the POR discount rate. The Bill Issuance and Payment Processing rate would be $0.81 per bill for NYSEG and $0.72 per bill for RG&E.

NYSEG/RG&E propose to change the balancing provisions to reduce the 10% deadband to 5% and to change the daily metered cash out tolerances to allow for monthly accumulations of rollover volumes and to add trading of volumes at the end of the month.

NYSEG/RG&E also propose to implement an $1800 EDI testing deposit to be collected from ESCOs prior to testing. If the ESCO goes into production within 60 days of the completing testing, the deposit would be returned. Otherwise, NYSEG/RG&E will keep it and apply it to general revenues.

The full text of the NYSEG/RG&E rate filing is available at: http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/MatterManagement/CaseMaster.aspx?Mattercaseno=15-E-0283

As directed by the Commission in its REV Order, Staff and the utilities have begun discussions regarding a utility code of conduct. The REV Order directed the utilities to function as Distributed System Platform Providers, raising issues about interaction within the utility and between the utility and its unregulated affiliates.

The utilities have provided their initial thoughts on guiding principles for a code of conduct.

The principles are as follows:
"Non-discriminatory/no preferential treatment
• The regulated utility will not provide favorable treatment to its affiliate(s) or to non-affiliated competitive providers (no discriminatory treatment).
• The regulated utility will provide equal and simultaneous access (non-discriminatory) to all competitive distributed energy resources (“DER”) providers, technology innovators and third party aggregators (energy service companies, retail suppliers and demand-management companies) to information concerning Distributed System Platform (“DSP”) system and planning needs.
• The regulated utility will not release competitive information to potential DER or third-party providers outside of the process to make such information public.
• An open DER procurement process will be utilized to avoid even the appearance of the opportunity for the misuse of inside information.
• The specific relationships between the regulated utility and its affiliate(s) shall be governed by individual affiliate transaction and/or code of conduct rules."

The full text of the Guiding Principles is available on the NEM Website.