CUB and EDF petitioned the Commission to open a proceeding to adopt an Illinois Open Data Access Framework. The proposed framework would serve as the governing standards for access to customer usage data by customers, utilities, and third parties. The proposed framework pertains to data ownership, types of data, third-party access to data, data formats, methods of delivering data, timeliness of data delivery, quality of data, data security, the use of national standards, and whether or not charges should be assessed for accessing data. CUB/EDF argue that since ComEd and Ameren are currently designing and building utility data management systems to work with their AMI deployments, that this framework should be adopted to provide the utilities with guidance as they undertake this work. The full text of the Petition is available on the NEM Website.

The Illinois Power Agency (IPA) released its Draft Electricity Procurement Plan for the period June 2015 through May 2020, for meeting supply needs of eligible Ameren and ComEd customers. IPA's proposed procurement strategy is to continue using its historical approach - hedging load by procuring on and off-peak blocks of forward energy in a three-year laddered approach - rather than a full requirements contracting approach. IPA proposes to conduct a fall 2015 procurement for energy efficiency as a supply resource for delivery starting in summer 2016. IPA also recommends procurement of SRECs and RECs from distributed generation resources. IPA recommends that capacity, ancillary services, load balancing services, and transmission services be purchased by Ameren from MISO, and by ComEd from PJM. Comments on the Draft Plan are due to IPA by September 15, 2014. The full text of the Draft Plan is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission issued a Tentative Order in its retail gas market investigation in which it identified issues for OCMO to examine to bring an improvement in the retail gas market and stimulate customer participation.

The Commission declined to have OCMO examine the issue of utilities exiting the merchant function, although noting it may revisit this decision at any time. The Commission also declined to have OCMO examine further rate unbundling at this time.

OCMO was directed to examine the following issues in the investigation:
1- the SOLR reconciliation process and improvements to timing of the process;
2- capacity assignment and storage, particularly with regard to system reliability;
3- non-discriminatory allocation of access points to local production;
4- balancing issues - scheduling, nominations, tolerances, penalties, cash-outs, standardization;
5- supplier creditworthiness requirements;
6- implementation of seamless moves and instant connects;
7- acceleration of switching timeframes;
8- Standard Offer Programs (for a later phase of the investigation);
9- CAP participation in the retail gas market;
10- enhanced consumer education, particularly PAGasSwitch.com;
11- POR program best practices that should be applied more consistently to utility programs;
12- modifications to supplier disclosure requirements;
13- joint utility-supplier bill;
14- remote access to customer account number via secure portal mechanism;
15- migration riders; and
16- electronic data transaction protocols.

The Commission requested comment on additional issues not previously identified in the Tentative Order or previous Order initiating the investigation. Comments are due 30 days after publication of the Tentative Order in the PA Bulletin. The full text of the Tentative Order is available on the NEM Website.