The First Notice Order in the electric marketing standards case has been published in the Illinois Register for comment. The First Notice Order would provide for:

1) a ten calendar day customer right of rescision from the date the electric utility processes the enrollment request;
2) the manner for disclosing variable and fixed price products;
3) the mailing of a Uniform Disclosure Statement to the customer within three business days;
4) a limitation on hours for door-to-door solicitation to 10am to 6pm;
5) a limitation on the definition of a “green” or “renewable” product to one that includes power and energy purchased entirely separate and apart from existing renewable portfolio standards;
6) a cap on early termination fees of $50 for the term of the contract. Any contract containing an early termination fee must also provide the customer the opportunity to contact the supplier to terminate the contract without any termination fee or penalty within ten business days after the date of the first bill issued to the customer; and
7) a prohibition on a retail electric supplier from marketing power and energy service to residential customers using a similar name (where any part of the retail electric supplier's name contains any part of the utility name) or logo to that of an existing electric utility affiliated in Illinois.

Comments are due September 26, 2011. The full text of the First Notice Order is available on the NEM Website.

Rehearing was sought of the Commission’s Order approving a residential POR discount rate of 4.39% for WGL (and by tariff a commercial discount rate of 0.83%). The Order utilized a two year amortization period of IT costs. On rehearing, it was argued a five year amortization period should be used which would yield a residential discount rate of 3.09% (and by tariff a commercial discount rate of 0.79%). NEM filed in support of the request that a five year amortization of IT implementation costs be used to derive the WGL residential discount rate. NEM argued that the regulations permit the unique circumstances of each individual utility to implement a viable POR program to be factored into the utility’s cost recovery via the POR discount rate mechanism. NEM also argued that the different stages of utility readiness to implement POR programs should be factored into the determination of the IT implementation cost amortization period. Finally, decreasing the amortization period from five to two years negatively alters the balance of the WGL POR program elements, and, in producing such a high residential discount rate will significantly impair suppliers’ ability to make use of it. Thus, the underlying purpose of POR, permitting suppliers to more cost-effectively serve mass market consumers, will be subverted unless the Commission determines that the originally proposed five year amortization period should be utilized in setting WGL’s discount rate. The full text of NEM's Filing is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission has approved and NFG agreed to a postponement of the effective date of the proposed changes to the utility's storage inventory balance requirements. The effective date is now postponed to September 30, 2011, to allow additional time for Staff to review NFG’s filing. NEM previously filed comments on NFG’s proposed revisions to storage inventory balance requirements recommending that the Commission reject the proposed changes arguing that NFG failed to justify them. NEM argued that marketers should not be required to take storage, rather that the percentages should serve as target guidelines. However, if marketers are continued to be required to take storage, then the current storage percentages should remain unchanged and not be made more stringent. In addition, if marketers are required to take storage, a tolerance should be incorporated to account for adjustments. NEM also recommended that the demand charge credited to a marketer when it returns storage capacity and gas to the utility be the same as the demand charge billed to the marketer when it enrolls a customer. The full texts of the Order and NEM's Comments are available on the NEM Website.

Keyspan filed proposed changes to its tariff and Seller Statement to implement a new daily balancing program effective November 1, 2011, and imbalance trading for monthly and daily balanced customers effective December 1, 2011. The proposed tariff changes will provide customers the option to take either the new daily balancing program or monthly balancing. It also establishes gas delivery procedures and cash out provisions for daily balancing. The filing modifies cash out provisions for monthly balancing to provide for imbalance trading. It also establishes imbalance trading for monthly and daily balanced customers. The Seller Statement is revised to set forth the charges associated with daily balancing. The full text of Keyspan's Filing is available on the NEM Website.

PPL filed a petition with the Commission requesting approval of a Reconciliation Rider for POLR service. PPL argues the Rider is necessary because its, "tariff currently does not contain a mechanism to recover or credit such over and under collection balances from customers who were default service customers when an over/under collection was created, but who are shopping customers when the over/under collection is refunded or recouped. Instead, these over/under collections are refunded to, or recouped from, those custoemrs who are default service customers during the reconciliation period regardless of whether or not they were default service customers when the over/under collection was created." PPL also argues that the Rider will contribute to a stabilizing effect on the PTC. PPL proposed the Rider become effective June 1, 2012. It will be computed on an annual basis and shown as a separate line item on customer bills. The Rider is proposed to be applied as follows, "If a customer switches from default service to shopping, the customer will be subject to the Reconciliation Rider for a period equal to the number of consecutive months, not to exceed twelve months, that the customer took default service immediately prior to becoming a shopping customer. If a customer switches from shopping to default service, the customer will be exempt from the Reconciliation Rider for a period equal to the number of consecutive months, not to exceed twelve months, that the customer was a shopping customer immediatley prior to switching to default service." The full text of PPL's Petition is available on the NEM Website.

PPL filed a request for extension of time to conduct its next solicitation of customers regarding release of their confidential information to Electric Generation Suppliers. PPL notes that the Commission is reconsidering its Eligible Customer List (ECL) proceeding. PPL is concerned that a final order in that case could change the range of choices available to customers to restrict release of their customer information, which would effect PPL's solicitation of customers currently scheduled to take place by September 2011. PPL requests an extension of the customer solicitation requirement until January 2012 or 120 days after an Order is issued in the ECL proceeding, whichever is later. The full text of PPL's Petition is available on the NEM Website.