In an Order issued this week, the Commission decided to study the health, safety and privacy aspects of the smart meters that Pepco will install as part of its AMI implementation. The Commission also determined to examine the feasibility of providing consumers the ability to opt out of Pepco's AMI program. The Order follows a letter received by the Commission from a D.C. Council committee requesting that a study be commissioned into the health, safety and privacy concerns of smart meters as well as the feasibility of an opt-out provision. The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission issued an Order adopting a Staff report setting forth principles for AMI implementation in the State. Due to the concerns of certain consumers about data privacy and AMI, "the Staff recommends that an opt-out option be provided by the electric utilities. The Commission agrees that the investor-owned electric utilities (i.e., Alpena, Consumers, Detroit Edison, I&M, NSP-W, UPPCo, WEPCo, and WPSC) shall make available an opt-out option, based on cost-of-service principles, for their customers if or when the provider elects to implement AMI." DTE has already filed an opt-out proposal and Consumers was directed to do so. The Commission also ordered the opening of a new docket to study cybersecurity planning, standards, and policies for utilities implementing AMI. The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.

Pursuant to the Commission's Order on measures to facilitate retail gas market development, UGI made a filing to unbundle gas procurement charges from base rates to be recovered in a new Gas Procurement Charge (GPC) that will be included in the computation of the Price to Compare. UGI computes the GPC charge to be $0.0114 per Mcf. The unbundled costs are attributable to the labor and benefits costs associated with the procurement of gas supply. However, UGI is not proposing to remove working capital costs associated with gas in storage inventory from base rates because it does not release capacity to natural gas suppliers. UGI is also not proposing to unbundle from base rates any portion of the capital costs related to the IT gas management system used to support the gas procurement function. This results in unbundling $226,692 from UGI's base rates.

UGI argues that by adding the E-factor and the newly created GPC to its Price to Compare that it will, "create greater headroom for Suppliers' service offerings and should lead to a materially greater level of customer shopping. By way of example, including the current "e-factor," the current MFC and the newly created GPC in the PTC adds 65 cents or 11.1% to the current residential PTC for UGI." The full text of the UGI Filing is available on the NEM Website.