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The Maine Public Utilities Commission issued a legislative report to the  Joint Standing Committee on Energy Utilities and Technology (EUT) Committee.  The report, entitled the “Report Regarding the Enrollment or Unenrollment from a Standard-offer Service Provider or Competitive Electricity Provider Within Three Business Days”.

{***} “Based on its assessment of the comments provided in the Inquiry and at the stakeholder meeting, the Commission recommends that the only change that should be made to the current enrollment and unenrollment process is to ensure that a customer’s request to switch from a CEP to a SO provider occur within three business days regardless of where in the billing cycle that request occurs and that this switch should occur without any charges. This change in the enrollment and unenrollment process would not require any statutory changes and could be accomplished by amending Commission rules, Chapters 322 and 301. It appears that no party strongly advocated for the changes proposed in LD 2163 and that the costs to customers far outweighed any potential benefits to customers wishing to switch providers multiple times during a billing cycle.

The only change the Maine Commission recommended is that requests to drop competitive electricity provider (CEP) service for standard offer service “occur within three business days, regardless of whether the drop occurs on-cycle or off-cycle within a billing period, and that any fee to implement an off-cycle drop be eliminated.” {***}

Note that NRG was “the only commenter in support of more rapid switching” in general, with other parties raising concerns that: (i) “Volatility in the supply market could lead to gaming of the system”; (ii) “increased uncertainty about customer load would tend to increase suppliers’ bids to provide both standard offer service and competitive service”; (iii) implementation costs would “far outweigh any potential benefits”; and (iv) there is no need, “since at least 90% of residential customers take standard offer service and a change in provider is more often… from CEP service back to a standard offer service and not switching between CEPs.”

As background, the ME PUC initiated this inquiry in response to a request from the Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities, and Technology (EUT) to facilitate a stakeholder process with entities providing electric billing and metering services. The purpose of the process to develop recommendations for facilitating enrollment and unenrollment of customers within three business days of a request, ultimately resulting in a report to the EUT Committee.

Legislative Report  (01/31/2025)