The Commission will convene a planning conference on the State’s future electricity needs on July 26-27, 2007, at the President’s Conference Center, Miller Senate Office Building in Annapolis, Maryland. The purpose of the conference is to receive testimony on electricity demand forecasts, planned generation facilities, transmission grid adequacy, and demand reduction potential. Workgroups will later be convened to aid the Commission in developing an action plan for the State’s energy future. Those wishing to nominate a speaker should contact jboone@psc.state.md.us by July 9, 2007. Comments, testimony, reports and data submissions on the issues are due July 11, 2007. The full text of the Notice of Planning Conference is available on the NEM Website.

In order to effectuate the recommendations in the Commission's 21st Century Energy Plan, a proceeding has been initiated to examine demand response. Staff will convene a collaborative on the issue. The Commission directed that a demand response pilot program be created based on the recommendations of the collaborative. The Commission also decided that, "the collaborative should include pilot programs at more than one utility and should emphasize the use of "smart" metering, advanced technology, and time-based or real time rate structures, in particular assessing the impact of time-based rates on customer demand for electricity." The full text of the Order Commencing Proceeding is available on the NEM Website.

NEM submitted comments on the Board's rulemaking proposing modifications to its Energy Competition Standards. NEM argued that: 1) marketing and advertising standards should not unnecessarily restrict marketers’ ability to make innovative offerings; 2) the additional third party verification requirement is a costly and duplicative barrier to choice; 3) the in-state office requirement should be satisfied by timely, expeditious production of documents when requested; 4) a three day residential contract rescission period is sufficient to protect consumer interests; 5) surety bond requirements should be tailored to the circumstance of the marketer; 6) the license renewal process should be made less burdensome; 7) the proposed record requirement associated with internet enrollments should be modified such that reproduction of data elements is sufficient; 8) the proposed “change order” requirements should be clarified in view of current EDI transaction practices and system limitations; and 9) the proposed rules should be modified to accommodate seamless moves. The full text of NEM's Comments is available on the NEM Website.

Assembly Speaker Silver and Energy Committee Chair Tonko introduced A.8940. The legislation is intended to establish a comprehensive state energy plan. The legislation would reestablish a state Energy Office whose responsibilities would include examining the impact of market deregulation and competition on consumer prices as well as the impact of federal policies on the State. A state Energy Planning Board would be established to adopt a state energy plan that evaluates energy demand, supplies, energy prices, facility siting, and alternative energy sources. The energy plan would provide guidance to public and private actors within the State. The bill also requires the Public Service Commission to review annually the multi-year rate plans of utilities. The full text of A.8940 is available on the NEM Website.

Staff filed testimony in NFG's rate case recommending, amongst other things: 1) addressing NFG's gas capacity assignment proposal on an expedited basis in Case 07-G-0299 or in response to the utility’s May 18, 2007 petition; 2) implementation of a true-up mechanism to ensure that capacity released by NFG does not result in undue customer inequities; 3) rejection of NFG's proposal to remove the “no harm, no foul" approach to transportation balancing cash outs; 4) rejection of NFG's proposal to include all contingency capacity costs in the calculation of balancing charges; 5) rejection of NFG's proposal to apply a winter–summer rate approach to balancing demand charges; and 6) modification of the merchant function charge to delineate: a) an uncollectible expense component, b) a storage gas carrying cost component, c) a supply component, and d) a record and collections component, for both residential and non-residential service classifications with the total being the respective single line items on the NGS statement. The full text of Staff's Testimony is available on the NEM Website.

In its testimony, CPB agrees with NFG's proposal to eliminate the “no harm, no foul” rule for determining whether imbalances in deliveries to customers taking service under service classification SC13D are to be “cashed out.” CPB does not object to the continuation of the POR program, provided that NFG recovers all incremental costs of the program from ESCOs. CPB concurs with NFG's proposal to eliminate its market match and market expo programs and scaling back of consumer education. The full text of CPB's Testimony is available on the NEM Website.

Recent legislation requires the Commission to report to the Governor and General Assembly on the feasibility of reducing electric energy consumption by 10% by the year 2022 using programs such as demand side management, conservation, energy efficiency, demand response, real time pricing, incentives and consumer education. The report is due December 15, 2007. In response to this requirement, the Commission has initiated a proceeding to receive input from stakeholders for inclusion in the report. An initial meeting of the workgroup in this proceeding will be held July 19, 2007, at 9AM in the Commission’s Courtroom C. The workgroup will be focused on “cost effective” measures to attain the consumption reduction goal. Staff is seeking input on short and long term “strategies for program implementation, advancement of technologies, consumer education efforts, need and amount for incentives, measurement and verification of results, decreasing energy consumption within a rapidly growing demand for energy, and the associated costs and benefits of such programs.” Those interested in participating in the workgroup should submit a letter of interest by June 25, 2007. Initial comments in the proceeding are due July 13, 2007, and reply comments are due August 3, 2007. Staff will submit its own report to the Commission by November 9, 2007. The full texts of the Order Initiating Proceeding and Staff Letter are available on the NEM Website.