Minutes of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission s Consumer Advisory Council Meeting of January 28, 2014

Transcription

1 Minutes of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission s Consumer Advisory Council Meeting of January 28, 2014 P.O. Box Harrisburg, PA Call to Order and Introductions Chairman Tim Hennessey called the meeting to order at 10 a.m. in the Executive Chambers of the Public Utility Commission. The Council approved the September 24, 2013, minutes. Attendance The following members of the Council were present: Tim Hennessey, Chairman Harry Geller, Vice Chairman Michael Bannon (telephone) Ralph Douglass Chad Quinn (telephone) George Silvestri (telephone) Bill Sterner Lee Tolbert Joe Toner (telephone) The following members of the Council were unable to be present: Lillian Carpenter Rick Hicks Tina Serafini Javier Toro Public Utility Commission Staff Present: Commissioner Gladys M. Brown Brett Rendina, Chairman Powelson s Office Mary Beth Osborne, Commissioner Cawley s Office Kim Barrow, Commissioner Brown s Office Teri Mathias, Commissioner Brown s Office Joe Witmer, Commissioner Brown s Office Matt Wurst, Commissioner Brown s Office Tom Charles, Office of Communications Jennifer Kocher, Office of Communications Christina Chase-Pettis, Office of Communications Lori Shumberger, Office of Communications Colin Scott, Law Bureau Robert Young, Law Bureau Tom Beene, Legislative Affairs Lenora Best, Bureau of Consumer Services Joe Magee, Bureau of Consumer Services Dan Mumford, Bureau of Consumer Services Dan Searfoorce, Bureau of Technical Utility Services 1

2 Guests Present: Tanya McCloskey, Office of Consumer Advocate Heather Yoder, Office of Consumer Advocate Bernadette Foisy, PECO Nicole Grear, Energy Association of Pennsylvania Peter Trufahnestock, Columbia Gas Commissioner Gladys M. Brown Visit Commissioner Gladys M. Brown thanked the Council for the invitation to the meeting. Commissioner Brown gave the Council some of her background as an attorney. She earned her bachelor s and Juris Doctorate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. Commissioner Brown worked as a clerk for the Honorable Paul A. Simmons, Judge for the U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania. Served as an assistant counsel for the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs in the Pennsylvania Department of State, and, since 1991, Commissioner Brown served as counsel to the Senate Democratic Leader. Commissioner Brown introduced her staff to the Council. Teri Mathias is the administrative officer for the office. Kim Barrow and Joe Witmer are both attorneys. Most already know Joe Witmer since he was the Council s PUC attorney. Matt Wurst is the executive policy manager. Commissioner Brown said she is happy to have the help of her staff. Harry Geller asked Commissioner Brown what can the Council do to actively help and provide advice to her. What would you like to see the Council do? Commissioner Brown said the Commission will take a broader approach on some issues. The Council can deal with some of the smaller issues and bring them to the Commission. The Council could point out something that the Commissioners didn t consider. Commissioner Brown told the Council that, due to some of your jobs, you could hear issues before we do. If you do, you can let the Commission know about them. Harry Geller said the timeframe on some of the issues are very important especially with the Council only meeting every two months. Michael Bannon congratulated Commissioner Brown on her election and said he will enjoy working with her. 2

3 Resale of Utilities Tim Hennessey said Tanya McCloskey, from the Office of Consumer Advocate, and Robert Young, from the PUC s Law Bureau would discuss the resale of utilities. Tanya McCloskey said she did a quick PowerPoint to help explain this issue. She handed out the presentation to everyone. Tanya McCloskey said the Office of Consumer Advocate (OCA) was established in OCA is an independent state office, administratively within the PA Office of Attorney General (OAG). The OCA represents the interests of PA utility consumers in legal proceedings before the PUC, federal regulatory agencies, and state and federal courts, as well as nongovernmental agencies such as PJM Interconnection. The OCA does receive calls from consumers about utility resale. The landlord can buy the service and then will resell to the tenants for the service or the landlord will bill the tenant for the costs of service they use. If the landlord bills the tenant for their costs, most will have a submeter installed in each unit. A landlord could use a formula to establish the cost per unit or the service could be included in the rent. The tenant is not the utility customer and they do not qualify for utility projection such as payment arrangements, Customer Assistance Program, or residential energy efficiency and conservation programs. Tenants are protected through the Public Utility Code for the resale, but other protections may be under the landlord/tenant law. The PA Public Utility Code governs the resale of utility for anyone that is not a public utility and resells services to a consumer. The bill shall not exceed the amount which the public utility would bill its own residential consumer for the same quantity of service. Some landlords have extra charges for handling that would increase the bill beyond that of the utility. This raises questions on a formula-based billing. Does this satisfy the requirements of Section 1313 of the Public Utility Code? If there is submeter billing based on actual usage, this complaint would be within Section 1313 and be under the Commission s jurisdiction. Most of these issues arise due to the accuracy and maintenance of the meters in the individual units. 3

4 OCA will look at each complaint and determine whether Section 1313 has been followed. OCA will contact the landlord and try to help work out the issue, and, if the issue cannot be resolved, OCA will refer the consumer to the PUC. When a landlord uses the formula method of billing, a bill is rendered but not based on the tenant usage. Jurisdictional issues arise as to the extent of the Commission s authority. The bill can be determined by using the square footage, the amount of rooms, the number of faucets, bathrooms and the number of people living there. There are other issues when using the formula billing. When all bills are paid, does it come above the total utility bill? Also, is the formula method fully and clearly disclosed before the tenant signs the lease, and whether the method is fair and nondiscriminatory? OCA will refer the consumer to both the Attorney General s Bureau of Consumer Protection and to the Commission. When there is no separate bill for utilities and everything is covered in a consumer s rent, jurisdiction appears to be in the area of the landlord/tenant law. OCA refers consumers to the Attorney General s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Tanya McCloskey thanked everyone and said the last slide is has her contact information. Ralph Douglass asked if there is a model for the formula method. Tanya McCloskey said she is not sure and does not believe the Commission has come up with a model formula. Robert Young said Section 1313 applies to residential calls only. The Commission has handled one case last year for resale of utility. Robert Young said, unlike most provisions, this section covers a broader issue than a public utility. This brings landlords to the Commission. Landlords that resell utilities are not a public utility. The Commission does not allow the landlords to overcharge the tenants, whether the Commission has jurisdictions or not. If the Commission doesn t have jurisdiction, the consumer will be sent to the Attorney General s Bureau of Consumer Protection or to the district judges. Ralph Douglas asked how the Commission handles or approves these complaints. Robert Young said not easily. If the landlord does not bill the tenants at residential rates and adds a rider or billing charge to the bill and then divides the bill by the number of units, there is not much we can do. If a consumer brings in a complaint, the bottom line is: if the charges to tenants larger than the utility bill without extra charges, the Commission can fine the landlord. Robert Young said if the landlord bills the tenants for steam heat or hot water heating, but buys gas to make steam or hot water, this is not a resale of utility. The landlord does not have a bill for steam heat or hot water heat. Robert Young said he 4

5 does not believe this would be under the Commission jurisdiction. This is a tricky subject. Robert Young said his opinion is the PUC should not have control over landlords and tenants. Lee Tolbert said Robert Young s opinion is good, but believes the PUC should have some control over this. There needs to be one agency completely in control of this. Robert Young said, in the 11 years that he has been with the PUC, there has only been one case that went through the PUC for resale of utilities. George Silvestri said he never heard about the resale of utilities or buying direct. For interruptions of service, we are told to call the utility. The utility company must bear all expenses for service. The supplier should receive the call about service, not the utility company. The PUC has not recognized this problem. Robert Young said there is a provision called utility service tenant rights. This provision requires utilities to know who their customers are. If the service is included in the rent or is resold to tenants, this gives the tenants certain rights and protection. The utility must provide termination notices to all tenants prior to termination the service. Robert Young said the second issue is why this does not belong with the PUC. If a tenant does not pay his separate utility bill to the landlord, the tenant cannot come to the PUC about being shut off. This would fall under the AG s jurisdiction, due to the lease that both the landlord and tenant signed. Robert Young said the resale of utility and amount of the tenant utility bill is under the jurisdiction of the PUC. Everything else is not. George Silvestri asked, if your utility service is lost, who should you call? Should you call the electric company when your service is with someone else? Robert Young answered that electric suppliers sell electricity. This is different from the resale of utilities. George Silvestri said there must be more accountability for electric suppliers. The utility company must repair the lines, poles and other parts. Ralph Douglass stated that is not a landlord issue. Robert Young said the utilities take the calls for damaged equipment. The utilities can tell if the problem is on the customer side or the utility side. Michael Bannon said that George Silvestri made some great comments. Is there a rule that allows the landlord to bill more than the amount of the total bill? Robert Young answered; as long as the bill stays under the rate of service. A landlord can add a billing fee to the tenant s bills. Michael Bannon said he did not know that. Some landlords are charging an administration fee that puts the service over the total amount. Robert Young said if a tenant is overbilled, they should call the AG s Office. Michael Bannon said the AG s Office has told him some issues are the PUC s and to call them. 5

6 Robert Young said the next time he meets with the AG s Office, he will bring this up with them. Harry Geller thanked Robert Young and Tanya McCloskey for their presentation, but wanted to point out the difficulties that he had seen. There are many different formulas that landlords use to calculate the service amounts. They use square footage of the units, how many people, how many faucets and more. There should be better guidelines on the formulas. Harry Geller said his second issue is the comment that the PUC does not receive many complaints from consumers about resale of utilities. The PA Utility Law Project (PULP) receives a large amount of calls and complaints from consumers about resale of utilities. Where should the consumers go to get help? Robert Young said he would discuss this with the AG s Office. Tim Hennessey followed up that Robert Young will talk with the AG s Office to help determine what complaints should go where. Robert Young replied to Harry Geller s comment. There are hundreds of consumers that are subjected to the resale of utilities, but we also know that most of these issues are resolved prior to coming to the PUC by other agencies or groups. Consumers may be sent to the district judges for help or the AG s Office for help. Smart Meters Privacy Update Kriss Brown from the PUC s Law Bureau, was asked to give a smart meter privacy update. A handout on the law is in your packets. Kriss Brown said it is his responsibility to advise the Commission on smart meters. Act 129 of 2008 required the large electric distribution company (EDC) to install smart meter technology. The EDCs with customer consent must make available direct meter access and electronic access to customer meter data to third parties. The EDCs were directed to collect all data from the smart meters prior to outages. The smart meters can store data for many days. Under No. 2, the Commission issued the Smart Meter Procurement and Installation Implementation Order. This order gives the utilities directions and standards that each utility must follow. Nos. 3 and 4 cover the privacy of customer information. The EDC or Electric Generation Supplier (EGS) cannot release private customer information to a third party without the customer s consent. Specifically, a customer may restrict the release of either the customer s telephone number or historical billing data. 6

7 For No. 5, the EDCs must allow customers the option to withhold the disclosure of all customer account and usage information. If the customer requests their phone number to be removed from the list, the EDC must remove the phone number. Ralph Douglass asked how the suppliers get customers phone numbers. Kriss Brown said there are other services that sell consumer s information. The suppliers could be using those services. Nos. 6 through 9 is the individual electric company s plan for deploying smart meters. The information released by the companies must comply with all of the Commission s regulations. Companies will not release any customer s information without written permission from the customer. All the utility companies smart meters must run on a secure site but, if your personal Internet site isn t secured, that can be an issue. Tim Hennessey asked what would happen if the EDC released consumer s information. Kriss Brown said the EDC could lose their licenses. Tim Hennessey brought up the recent credit card issues. But you just said that a consumer must have a secured website. Many consumers in Philadelphia do not have computers or know how to use them. Are there other securities that a consumer could use? Kriss Brown said the meter has a chip that could maybe turn off so no one can see the consumer s information or data. At this time, the only company that has rounded out smart meters is PECO. Lee Tolbert asked if someone could obtain the consumer s personal information from the meters. Kriss Brown said the smart meters do not contain any of the consumer s personal information on it. Ralph Douglass questioned the meters having customer s account numbers. Kriss Brown said the only number would be the meter number and not the customer number. George Silvestri said the customer consent is a sticking point. The customer should have to opt in to the program instead of opt out. Kris Brown said there are two options. The opt-in option is requesting permission to hand out the customers personal informations. The opt out is what the EDC collects on a customer s usage. The smart meter data is read every hour and held for a day. Then that data is deleted. Tanya McCloskey said there are two types of data that the EDC collects. One is the historical data used for the month for billing and the other is hourly usage data. If you do not want your data usage given, customer must opt out of the program. 7

8 Kriss Brown said that PPL customers can view their hourly usage by signing on to a website. Customers can go back up to two months. To use this program, a customer needs to be opt in. Kriss Brown said, with smart meters, the company could have multiple rates for a day depending on peak period usage or lower usage times. Customer could see when they are using the most energy and change their activities to reduce their bills. Lee Tolbert asked if someone is applying for LIHEAP. Could they require the consumer to change their usage or get denied help? Kriss Brown said he does not believe the rules will change and require consumers to change. Kriss Brown said customers cannot opt out of a smart meter. Legislation has required all EDCs to deploy smart meters. Other states have offered their customers an opt-out plan. Kriss Brown said the Commission holds stakeholder meetings and anyone can attend these meetings. George Silvestri said, if the companies do not have our usage information, they cannot use it against us. Kriss Brown said the PUC must follow the legislation requiring smart meter deployment. Legislative Update Tom Beene, from PUC s Legislative Affairs, was asked to give an update on legislation. Tom Beene said House Bill 906 dealing with smart meters passed on Monday, Jan. 27 by a vote of There were some amendments. House Bill 1607 is One Call legislation. The House is working with stakeholders on amendments. We are not sure this will move out of the House. The PUC could be taking over jurisdiction from Labor and Industry. The major changes are to pipelines and oversight on safety. House Bill 1608 deals with Chapter 30. There have been two hearings and a lot of testimony. Chairman Powelson and Commissioner Cawley both testified at the hearings. This bill is still sitting in committee. The bill was introduced last session and was reintroduced this session. We are not sure what will happen with this bill. House Bill 939 is Chapter 14. This passed the House and is now in the Senate. One of the major issues is Friday terminations. Not all companies want to stop Friday terminations. 8

9 Senate Bill 1121 is the Sen. Mensch bill on default service. There have been a lot of discussions. This was introduced back in October The Commission has taken a neutral stance, but is very interested in the outcome. The Governor s budget address is next week, and SB 1121 could be included in his address. Congress has increased the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) total to $3.3 million and the weatherization program to $1.4 million. George Silvestri brought up the Mensch bill. This is the bill that requires all customers to pick a supplier and if you do not, one will be assigned to you. This is something that should not happen. Harry Geller said HB 939 still has Friday terminations included. The House supported the Friday terminations. Tom Beene said this is a concern to the Commission. Ralph Douglass asked if this bill should prohibit Friday terminations. Harry Geller said yes, terminations should be Monday through Thursday. Tom Beene said companies state that if a customer pays their bill on Saturday by noon, they will be restored by 6 p.m. that day. There are some that don t agree with this. Harry Geller asked if the termination notice is still 48 hours. Tom Beene said yes. LIHEAP Update Lenora Best and Joe Magee, from the Bureau of Consumer Services were asked to give an update. Lenora Best introduced Joe Magee to the Council. Joe Magee came from the Department of Labor and Industry. Prior to that he worked with the Department of Public Welfare and worked with the LIHEAP program. The cash program opened on Nov. 4, The cash program will be closing on April 4, A household can receive $100 up to the maximum of $1,000. The household size, income, fuel type and county of residence determine the cash grant amount. For the crisis program, there are two programs; the crisis exception program and the regular crisis program. The crisis exception program opened on Nov. 4, 2013, and will close on Jan. 1, There are three conditions that a household must fall under to qualify for this grant. They must: be eligible for LIHEAP; be without a heating source; and understand that LIHEAP cash grants cannot resolve the emergency alone. 9

10 The regular crisis program opened on Jan. 2, 2014 and will close on April 4, To receive this program, a household must be terminated or will be running out of fuel in 15 days. The household can receive $25 up to the maximum of $500 grant. To qualify for a LIHEAP grant, the household must be under the poverty level of 150 percent, be a Pennsylvania resident and be responsible for their heating source. As of Jan. 24, 2014, DPW has reported that $65.6 million in cash grants have been issued to 287,459 households. For crisis grants, $17.1 million has been issued to 32,297 households. There are 29,970 LIHEAP applications that currently are still pending. About 70 percent of the crisis grants are for households using fuel oil. The utility companies are under the winter termination rules and cannot terminate during the winter. Looking to the future, the senators are pushing to release more money to the states for LIHEAP help. Pennsylvania normally gets a bigger share of the federal money. Ralph Douglass asked if the grants are a onetime deal. Joe Magee said cash grants are just one a season, but the crisis grant is up to $500. If you received a crisis grant and it was not $500, you could receive another crisis grant. Lee Tolbert said the Philadelphia area has major problems with Department of Public Welfare (DPW) on the response time to send out the grants. There is a major backlog. Are there new procedures to change this problem in Philadelphia? Joe Magee said he was not aware of anything new in Philadelphia. At this time, Philadelphia has 7,000 applications pending. Lee Tolbert said Philadelphia always haves issues. DPW employees do not have enough training or there are equipment issues. There needs to be better communications between the consumers and DPW. Harry Geller said the rule at DPW is crisis grants need immediate responses and cash grants should take up to 30 days. Some applications can go beyond 60 days. There may be applications that have not been processed by the closing date of LIHEAP and may be terminated prior to receiving their money. Ralph Douglass asked how DPW verifies that the utility bill was paid. Joe Magee said most of the money will be sent directly to the utility company to pay the bill. Lenora Best said there was a national LIHEAP conference call on Thursday, Jan. 30. There could be some interesting happenings. Tim Hennessey asked if the information from that call could be given to the Council. Tom Charles said we would send it out once we receive it. 10

11 Prepare Now/Cold Weather Survey Update Dan Mumford, from PUC s Bureau of Consumer Services, was invited to give an update on the Prepare Now Campaign and the cold weather survey. Dan Mumford said the cold weather survey was done in December. This requires the utility company to contact households without service and that have ot been reconnected during the year. The utility must make four attempts to contact the consumers without heating service. In December, the result is about 19,653 households without service compared to the 15,975 households last year. A cold weather survey press release is in your packets. The utility companies must go out in January and resurvey all the homes to see if they were reconnected. Last year, the February numbers did drop. Dan Mumford said, when the utilities were asked about the high termination households, the utilities said the money is not coming in like it used to. The economy is still soft. Ralph Douglass said PECO discontinued their special heating rate. Dan Mumford said yes, about one year ago. Ralph Douglass asked if that could be an issue. Dan Mumford said it has been a very cold winter already. Natural gas is still low but the only thing he can see is the very cold winter is causing the high heating bills. Harry Geller stressed to the Council the termination and reconnection sheets are in the packets. The number of households terminated in 2013 is 21 percent higher for electric than in Dan Mumford said if you look at the amount of terminations for 2011 and 2013, the totals are closer. Not sure why 2012 had such a low termination. Harry Geller said the termination numbers have crept up every year. Is there no review of the termination numbers? Are there not a number of terminated households that would be considered unacceptable? Bernadette Foisy from PECO said there is an increase in reconnections as well. Harry Geller said agreed, but the terminations numbers are increasing. How long are the terminated households without service? FirstEnergy Plant Closing Update Jennifer Kocher, from the PUC s Office of Communications, was asked to give an update on the FirstEnergy plants that closed. Jennifer Kocher said the two FirstEnergy plants closed on Oct. 9, Between the two plants, they produced almost 2,000 megawatts (MW) of base load generation. 11

12 An average home uses about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity a year. The two plants represented the power need for 1.5 million homes with electricity for a year. Beyond the loss to the community of 380 jobs to date, no negative impacts have been seen on the electric grid. With the recent calls to conserve electricity due to the severe demand of the extreme cold of this winter would likely not have changed if these plants had remained in operation. And even if these plants were running they would not have offset the demand on the grid due to the extreme cold. The PUC was concerned with the deactivations and what would they have on reliability and the price of electricity. PUC was engaged in working to mitigate any detrimental effects on consumers as a result of the deactivations. Ralph Douglass said the PUC must approve plant closures. Jennifer Kocher said no, but the PUC did reach out to PJM Interconnection for its assessment of the situation and did a study on the reliability of the grid without the two plants. Bill Sterner thought the plants were not clear to run. Jennifer Kocher said they were operating, but these plants had not been cleared to run in recent years due to the market structure for bringing plants online to provide electricity. Jennifer Kocher said the PUC sent out press releases about conservation and safe heating practices during the cold weather. These plants were not taken off of the grid since they had not been supplying major power into the grid. There were other plants that came online. The peaking plants are typically gas fired plants that could meet the high-peak needs. Additionally, because FirstEnergy also cited the cost of compliance with current and future environmental regulations as one of the reasons for the closures, the Commissioners discussed those concerns with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The PUC is concerned about every potential deactivation. In expressing their concern, the Commissioners were adamant that the concern did not mean that they are not supportive of the free market. The Commissioners said it was their obligation as PUC Commissioners to ask questions and ensure that every possible alternative has been fully explored and vetted. Tim Hennessey said he hoped the plants could be brought online again. Jennifer Kocher said the plants could be retrofitted and brought up to code, and they could come back online. Tim Hennessey asked if the plants were out of compliance or would they soon be out of compliance? Bill Sterner said the Hatfield plant was in compliance until It 12

13 could be converted to natural gas; there are natural gas lines there. George Silvestri said natural gas fueled plants cannot produce as much steam as a coal fire plant can. Natural gas plants cannot maintain the steam temperatures. Tim Hennessey asked George Silvestri to send this information in writing so it can be circulated to the Council. Future Meeting Topics Harry Geller said, at the last Council meeting, there was a presentation on the Council s responsibilities and what happens to the Councils motions. Tom Charles said he sends all the motions to the Commissioners after every Council meeting and a brief overview of the meeting. Harry Geller said the Commission s regulations state all Council actions must be given to the Secretary and to the Bureau of Consumer Service (BCS) to create a permanent record. Tom Charles said he would have staff review this. Tom Charles asked what is considered a Council action. Harry Geller said a motion with some advice. Ralph Douglass asked didn t we do some type of action at the last Council meeting. Harry Geller said yes. Tom Charles said he sent the motion to the Commissioners. Harry Geller said he wanted to point out two press releases that are in the packets. The first is the Commission partnering with Widener University School of Law, the Pennsylvania Bar Association Pro Bono Program and low-income advocates to help low-income consumers to receive legal representations for informal and formal complaint proceedings. He would like to thank Commissioner Cawley and his Office, and the other Commissioners for this service. The second press release notes that the PUC approved PECO s customer assistance program (CAP) shopping plan. CAP customers can now shop for suppliers. Duquesne s CAP customer shopping is still pending with the PUC. CAP customers method of shopping will need to be done differently. If this is not done correctly, all residential customers could pay the price. Harry Geller brought up the bi-monthly Council meetings. If the weather conditions are bad, there could be a length time between meetings. Should the Council have conference calls during the off-meeting months? Should we make a motion to start doing conference calls meetings. Tom Charles said the Council does not need to make a motion. When the meetings went to bi-monthly, staff suggested that the Council a conference call in alternate months. Harry Geller and Tim Hennessey both thought this would be great. Tom Charles said the conference calls would be more of a working group discussion and PUC staff would not attend these calls (other than those assigned to the CAC from Communications and the Law Bureau). Tim Hennessey said a copy from Dan Searfoorce on the follow-up for smart meters is in the packets. 13

14 Tim Hennessey asked about future meeting topics. The Marcellus Shale has been on the future meeting topics for a while and maybe we could get someone in to discuss that. Is there anything else? Lee Tolbert said he would like to have a update on utility competition in Philadelphia. Ralph Douglass said he heard that Comcast will be providing electricity soon. Could the Council receive an update on that? Future Meeting Topics Include: Act 13 Update Comcast, Supplier of Electricity LIHEAP Update Legislative Update Marcellus Shale Update Resale of Utilities Smart Meters Privacy Update The next meeting for the CAC will be held at 10 a.m. on March 25, 2014, in the Executive Chambers of the Commonwealth Keystone Building. ### 14