The Commission issued a draft agenda for the June 22nd en banc hearing on the Draft Green Book in the Customer Choice Project. Panels at the hearing will discuss:
* How much choice do Californians want and what is the best way to provide it? What choices are missing from the state’s policies?
* Update on CEC 2019 Building Energy Efficiency Standards & Implications for Choice
* Core Principle: Providing Affordability and Consumer Protections
* Core Principle: Decarbonization: Scaling Infrastructure
* Core Principle: Maintaining Reliability

Interestingly, the agenda appears to only contemplate seeking retailer participation on the reliability panel.

Earlier this week stakeholders, including NEM, filed comments on the Draft Green Book that was issued in the Customer Choice Project. NEM agreed with the Draft Green Book that a clear long-term vision for the regulatory framework is needed. By articulating a clear long-term vision for the State’s regulatory framework it will provide all stakeholders with much-needed regulatory certainty that is necessary to incent and support the investment of competitive at-risk capital to provide consumers with innovative energy solutions to meet ambitious State policy goals. In response to the Draft Green Book's query as to the future role of the regulated utility, NEM recommended (as it did in prior comments) that the utilities exit the commodity merchant function and focus their resources on their core competency of ensuring the reliable maintenance of delivery infrastructure. NEM also noted that the state market models that were selected for study - New York, Illinois and Texas - were implemented for the purpose of directly providing individual consumers with competitive energy options from competitive retail suppliers. Yet, the Draft Green Book is overwhelmingly focused on the customer aggregation model and appears to predominantly view and evaluate the four markets chosen through that lens. Notwithstanding the existing restrictions on Direct Access participation in the State, in order to properly evaluate California’s long-term regulatory structure, the Draft Green Book should have included a more comprehensive analysis of the expansion of Direct Access, separate and apart from CCAs. The overwhelming consumer demand for Direct Access participation has been consistently demonstrated by year over year, fully-subscribed enrollments up to the shopping cap.

The full texts of the Draft Agenda and NEM's Comments are available on the NEM Website.

The New York PSC opened a proceeding on Cyber Security Protocols and Protections in the Energy Marketplace.

The Order recognized the recent discussions between PSC Staff, utilities, and energy service entities. The PSC broadly defined energy service entities as “ESCOs, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) providers, and any other third party that contracts with an ESCO to communicate data between the ESCO and the utility.“

Of the discussions and timelines previously announced by Staff, the NYPSC said, “The Joint Utilities are currently pursuing these business-to-business discussions pursuant to the Uniform Business Practices approved by the Commission in Case 98-M-1343. In those discussions, the Joint Utilities have requested that all energy services entities complete a Self-Attestation of Information Security Controls by the end of June 2018. Additionally, the Joint Utilities are requesting that energy services entities review and comment on proposed Data Security Agreements (DSAs) by June 22, 2018, and to be prepared to sign a final DSA by the end of July 2018. The attestations are designed to expeditiously identify any material gaps in current best practice cyber security controls. Any material gaps will need to be promptly remedied. Additional protections, including liability assurance, indemnification, audits, and cyber insurance, are being addressed in the DSAs. Joint Utilities’ proposed DSA is modeled after the DSA approved by the Commission in the CCA DSA Order. The Commission supports the business-to-business process described above, including the current deadlines, which have been agreed to by all parties.”

The NYPSC further directed the “Department Staff to review the issues being addressed in the current business-to-business process between the Joint Utilities and energy service entities, and ensure that any issues that cannot be properly resolved in that forum are addressed in this proceeding. Department Staff is directed to, by August 31, 2018, file a report on the status of the business-to-business process undertaken to address cyber security issues.” The Commission said its goals "are to ensure that adequate cyber security protections are in place to protect utility systems and confidential and sensitive customer information, and to explore whether insurance is an efficient and effective vehicle for mitigating any potential financial risks. These issues should be developed to address both the energy services entities, as well as distributed energy resource suppliers."

The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.