The Commission approved a settlement in the gas unbundling proceeding. The settlement provides that: 1) the LDCs will continue to act as the SOLR for at least the next three years and continue to be responsible for long-term supply and capacity planning activities; 2) Shifted capacity-related costs are to be phased out over a four year period. A $0.30/mcf transition charge will be implemented for firm transportation customers on and after December 1, 2002, that will increase to $0.34/mcf beginning December 1, 2003. At least two-thirds of net shifted capacity costs are to be eliminated by December 1, 2004, and all capacity-related shifted costs are to be eliminated by December 1, 2005; 3) by June 1, 2003, parties are to submit a proposed approach to capacity assignment to marketers; 4) all LDCs will treat cashouts uniformly and will permit, "any trades of equal and opposite gas quantities for pools on the same pipeline with the same balancing requirements by any Marketer with the application of tariff provisions related to standby service, balancing and cashout applying only to the post-trading positions of such Marketer," and, "the calculation of daily cashout imbalances using a Gas Daily index appropriate for each pipeline and firm transportation pool." The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website. The full text of the Settlement Agreement is available from NEM headquarters.

The Commission found that ComEd's Rate 6L, a tariffed service available to large commercial and industrial customers, is competitive with respect to customers whose loads are 3MW and greater. Due to a concern that future developments could lead to a decrease in competition for this customer segment, the declaration that ComEd's service is competitive was granted by operation of law. The Commission will monitor the ongoing development of the market for this particular customer group.

In its Order, the Commission found, consistent with NEM's argument, that a seven-prong test contains the proper criteria to consider when declaring service "competitive." The Commission found that an "identifiable customer segment" can be identified by examining ComEd's annual usage data in the same manner as ComEd examines it to determine eligibility for Rate 6L. The Commission agreed with NEM that the criterion of "reasonable equivalent substitute service" does not mean an "exact equivalent" and held that the substantial number of customers who have left bundled service for alternative service (as indicated in ComEd's switching data) was sufficient to demonstrate the existence of reasonable equivalent substitute service. The fact that sophisticated customers have chosen to buy their power from alternative suppliers was very compelling that such alternatives are priced comparably to or more favorably than Rate 6L. Therefore, the existence of substitute service available at a "comparable price" was met. The Commission held that the five alternative suppliers serving customers with loads of 3MW or more satisfied the "other providers" criterion. Given that ComEd has lost nearly 1/3 of its customers in the 3MW or greater group to alternative suppliers, the Commission sustained ComEd's proposition that it has met the "loss of business" prong. The Commission did not require proof of actual economic harm to prove this element. The Commission, after examining the amount of "transmission capacity" into ComEd's service area, concluded that ComEd has adequate transmission capacity to make electric power reasonably available. The Commission held that the criterion of "customer switching" can be (and was satisfied) by switching data, particularly if it is substantial. While, the Commission reserved the right to review this issue on a case-by-case basis, it held that ComEd's switching data was substantial. The full text of the Order has been hotlinked here for your convenience.

A settlement agreement has been submitted on standard offer service (SOS). The proposed settlement extends the utilities' obligation to provide SOS and provides that the utilities will obtain electric supply for SOS customers through a competitive wholesale procurement process. Prices for SOS customers are to be set as: a) the seasonally-differentiated and time-of-use differentiated (if applicable) load weighted average of all awarded electric supply prices for specific services in each year; b) retail charges to recover FERC-approved transmission charges and any other PJM charges and costs incurred by a utility directly related to its residential SOS load obligation; c) an administrative charge; and d) applicable taxes. The administrative charge is proposed as follows: residential customers - 4 mills/kwh, Type I non-residential customers - 5 mills/kwh, Type II non-residential customers - 6 mills/kwh, Type III large customers - 6.5 mills/kwh and hourly-priced non-residential service - between 2.25 and 3.0 mills/kwh. The full text of the Settlement Agreement is available on the NEM Website.

Pursuant to the Board's Order approving the utilities wholesale procurement of energy to serve Basic Generation Service customers beginning on August 1, 2003, the utilities have submitted revised compliance filings. The filings detail the BGS-Fixed Price and BGS-Hourly Energy Price auction processes to be utilized. Utility-specific addendums were also filed. The full texts of the BGS-FP and BGS-HEP Auction Compliance Filing, PSEG Addendum, JCP&L Addendum, ACECO Addendum and RECO Addendum are available on the NEM Website.

NEM submitted comments on Staff's competitive metering strawman. NEM supported the strawman proposals permitting customers to participate in competitive metering by purchasing a meter and permitting customers to choose a competitive provider for installation and routine maintenance of a non-utility-owned meter. However, NEM argued that the strawman did not comply with the terms of the restructuring law which required that all competitive metering services, such as meter data services, be available on a competitive basis to C&I customers beginning on Janaury 1, 2004. NEM also noted that the strawman failed to set forth timelines for implementation, a methodology for determining metering cost credits, data transmittal standards, certification standards, or a process for developing a metering manual. The full text of NEM's Comments is available on the NEM Website.