As required by statute, the Illinois Power Agency (IPA) submitted a Draft Procurement Plan to the Commission for the period June 2010 through May 2015. The plan must be designed, “to ensure adequate, reliable, affordable, efficient, and environmentally sustainable electric service at the lowest total cost over time." The IPA suggests that, "a laddered approach to procurement using the statutory Request for Proposals bid process will provide the highest probability of cost stability and at-the-market prices for electricity." Specifically, it proposes to utilize, a "portfolio distribution schedule that allows between 20% and 40% of projected loads to be procured in each of the three years prior to the delivery month." Parties have thirty days from posting of the draft plan to make comment to IPA. They also will have the subsequent opportunity to make comment to the Commission. The full text of the Draft Plan is available on the NEM Website.

The Board is requesting comments from the utilities and other stakeholders on the following issues associated with the Basic Generation Service proceeding for the period commencing June 1, 2010:

"Currently the statewide load cap is set at roughly 37% of the tranche target. What are the potential benefits or drawbacks with raising the statewide load cap to roughly 45% of the tranche target? In addition, would raising the statewide load cap also result in the need to raise the EDC specific load caps?

Under N.J.S.A. 48:3-87(d) and N.J.A.C. 14:8-2, BGS providers and third party suppliers are required to comply with the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards. Historically, the Supplier Master Agreement has required each BGS-FP supplier and each BGS-CIEP supplier to satisfy the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards with respect to its Supplier Responsibility Share. What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of eliminating this requirement from the Supplier Master Agreement, either with respect to all of the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (Solar, Class I, and Class II) or with respect to one or two of those standards?"

Comments on these additional issues should be filed as part of the Initial Comments due August 28, 2009, and/or the Final Comments due September 25, 2009, in this case. The Board will also convene a legislative-type hearing to address these issues.

ConEd was required to file a Report on the potential for cost-effective demand response in Zone J of its service territory. In response, NEM filed comments recommending that as part of the effort to improve cost effective demand response, that residential and small commercial customer demand response load profiles be established by ConEd (and also the other New York utilities) to be used for marketer settlement purposes with the NYISO. NEM explained that the way that the demand response load profiles can work is straightforward. The demand response load profile should provide a more granular, refined profile than is currently available and incent realistic first steps at educating and implementing residential and small commercial demand response. A first generation transitional demand response load profile for residential and small businesses can establish load-shifting goals as differentiated from current standard load profiles. With these load profiles available, marketers can develop more off-peak type product offerings for customers, and buy more energy in off peak periods, supporting both reduced usage (volumetric benefit) and a lower commodity rate (price benefit). The marketer bears the risk that its customers will not conform to the demand response load profile until smart meters, smart thermostats, or a second more accurate generation of demand response load profiles become available. And, if the marketer is not conforming to the demand response load profile, the “penalty” could also be to revert them to the standard load profiles currently applicable to the existing service classes of its customers. The full text of NEM's Comments is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission recently approved RGE's request to increase its non-bypassable charges (NBC). Pursuant to the Order, RGE was required to mitigate the impacts of the increased NBCs on fixed-price option (FPO) customers by applying amounts contained in its Asset Sale Gain Account (ASGA). Pactiv Corporation filed a complaint against RGE with the Commission alleging that it is a fixed-price customer of a marketer and that while the invoice it received from RGE reflected the adjustment to the NBC, the invoice did not mitigate the NBC using amounts contained in the ASGA. Pactiv requested that the Commission issue an order directing RGE to apply amounts in the ASGA to mitigate the increased NBCs. The full text of the Pactiv Complaint is available on the NEM Website.