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The Massachusetts Department of Public Utility (DPU) issued an order granting in part and denying in part distribution companies’ joint motion for authorization to share proprietary data for the purpose of integrated energy planning (IEP). 

The DPU order does the following: (1) granted the request to share some residential demographic categories, finding: (i) “that it is necessary for the Distribution Companies to share customer-specific information with each other and municipal light plants (‘MLPs’), as needed, to ensure the successful execution of IEP”; and (ii) “that some of the information that is necessary for IEP is likely to be considered proprietary by some customers and that it would be infeasible for the Distribution Companies to obtain prior authorization from every customer”; and (2) denied the “request for authorization to share payment status data and [a number of] residential demographic categories identified in Appendix A because the Distribution Companies have not met their burden to demonstrate a benefit to releasing the data that outweighs the protection of customer privacy and data security, particularly in light of the sensitive nature of these data.

Subsequentially, on March 19th, the Hearing Officer filed notice of correction to the order Of note, “Page 26 has been corrected to remove “Billing_Account_ID” and “Premise_ID” from the list of granted data categories and to confirm the Department’s decision to deny the Distribution Companies’ request for authorization to share “Billing_Account_ID” and “Premise_ID” data without customer authorization.”

Corrected Order  (03/19/2025)
Corrected Page (03/19/2025)
DPU Docket No. 20-80 (Opened 06/04/2020)

(nvestigation by the Department of Public Utilities on its own Motion into the role of gas local distribution companies as the Commonwealth achieves its target 2050 climate goals.)