The Senate and House have both passed SB1243, "An Act Concerning the Establishment of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and Planning for Connecticut's Energy Future." SB1243 would institute a state agency-run integrated resources planning requirement and the agency would be charged with the procurement of standard service offer power. The bill would retain the supplier referral program. It would require the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (reconstituted Department) to institute a proceeding to determine the cost of billing, collections, and other services provided by the electric utilities for the sole benefit of suppliers/aggregators for the purpose of allocating costs to the suppliers/aggregators. Costs that the electric utilities incur solely for the benefit of customers for whom they sell power will also be a subject of the proceeding.

The bill would require the adoption of an electric supplier code of conduct applicable to sales solicitations to consumers with demand up to 100 kilowatts by a supplier, aggregator, or its agent. Suppliers would be required to provide consumers with a demand of less than 100 kilowatts with a written contract. Consumers with demand up to 500 kilowatts would have a three business day right of rescission premised on the date the consumers enters into the contract or receives a written contract, whichever is later. Termination fees are capped at $100 or twice the consumer's estimated bill for energy services for an average month, whichever is less. The bill would also require, beginning July 1, 2012, that suppliers provide direct billing or pay their pro rata share of costs to the utility for providing billing services, for customers with at least 100 kilowatts of demand. The full text of SB1243 is available on the NEM Website.

The Board issued an Order denying a request for rehearing of its decision to eliminate the Basic Generation Service retail margin. The retail margin consisted of a 5 mill/kwh charge for non-residential BGS-Fixed Price customers with a peak load of 750 kwh or greater and all BGS-Commercial and Industrial Energy Pricing customers. The Board denied reconsideration reiterating its previous findings including its review of switching data, as well as, "current and historic market behavior, TPSs administrative costs, and statutory interpretation to reasonably conclude that the Retail Margin has served its intended purpose . . . to promte a competitive retail market for electric supply, and not simply to 'equalize costs' between TPSs and EDCs." The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.

The Pennsylvania PUC is reconsidering its previous Order on eligible customer lists, following the appeals of consumer groups that argued that the Order violated consumers’ right to privacy by: 1) preventing customers from restricting release of all of their customer information; and 2) constructing the ECL as an opt-out program. The Commission is reconsidering the Order in order to “produce a new order that strikes an appropriate and lawful balance between customer privacy rights and the Commission’s obligations under Chapter 28 of the Public Utility Code.” The Commission also believes that statewide uniformity “is an essential feature for efficient operation of the retail markets in each EDC service territory” and is reviewing its prior general ECL order and specific PPL and Duquesne with this goal in mind. Comments are due July 13, 2011. The full text of the Notice of Reconsideration is available on the NEM Website.