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At its regularly scheduled July 18, 2024, Administrative Session, the Commission issued this First Revised Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.  The rules proposed in this First Revised NOPR for Utility Rule 515-7-8 will be considered for adoption at the Commission’s regularly scheduled Administrative Session on October 15, 2024, at 9:30 a.m. to be held in the Commission’s hearing room on the first floor of 244 Washington Street SW., Atlanta, Georgia 30334.  This rule shall become effective as provided for by law, twenty (20) days after its adoption by the Commission and subsequent filing with the Secretary of State.

Under the revised rules all retail natural gas suppliers in Georgia would be subject to the same presumptive penalty for violations of service quality metrics (SQMs), regardless of the supplier’s market share.

As background, on October 3rd, 2023, the Commission issued the original Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) for public consideration and comment. (Docket No. 15296, Document No. 215846) the PSC had issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) revising the rules applicable to retail gas marketer SQMs.

The revised NOPR issued by the PSC eliminates this tiered approach to the presumptive penalty for violations of the SQM benchmarks.  The presumptive penalty for non-compliance with any SQM benchmark shall be $25,000 per each non-compliance event, regardless of a supplier’s market share.

Note that while the proposed rule contains a “presumptive” penalty, the ultimate determination of a fine for non-compliance with an SQM benchmark will be determined by the PSC.  “All penalties will be subject to Commission discretion,” and provides that marketers or other parties may seek adjustment to a penalty.

Both the original NOPR and revised NOPR provide for remediation periods to allow a retail supplier to come into compliance with an SQM benchmark prior to incurring a penalty for non-compliance. The revised NOPR does contain several changes regarding the remediation periods.

As an example, for both call wait time violations, and billing accuracy violations, the original NOPR would have required a remediation plan to be filed by a supplier by the last day of the second month of the remediation period.

The revised NOPR requires the remediation plan to be filed by the last day of the first month of the remediation period.

For both call wait time violations, and billing accuracy violations, the original NOPR would have required a supplier’s report concerning the remediation period to be filed within 5 days of the end of the remediation period. The revised NOPR extends this remediation period report deadline to 15 days after the end of the remediation period.

For the call wait time SQM, the revised NOPR imposes an interim metric that the supplier must meet during the remediation period.

Under the call wait time remediation period, as modified under the revised NOPR, in order to “pass” and avoid a fine, the supplier must meet a 70% benchmark concerning call wait times during the second month of the remediation period, and the established SQM benchmark of 80% during the third month of the remediation period. The original NOPR had not included the interim 70% benchmark during the remediation period and would have only required that the supplier meet the 80% metric during the third month of the remediation period.

The revised NOPR accelerates when marketers must meet the billing accuracy SQM under a remediation period, while also apparently correcting a scrivener’s error in the original NOPR.

The revised NOPR imposes the established SQM benchmark, which is 98.5% bill accuracy, during both the second and third month of the remediation period. Specifically, the revised NOPR states, for the billing accuracy remediation period, “In order to achieve passing remediation and avoid a penalty, the Marketer, at a minimum, shall meet the established SQM benchmark of 98.5% during the second and third month of the remediation period.”

Regarding the call wait time SQM, the revised NOPR does modify the definition and calculations used to determine compliance with the call wait SQM, addressing issues including the start of the wait time, and the treatment of customer-initiated call terminations.

Furthermore, the original NOPR would have only applied the call wait time SQM to “consumer” calls. The revised NOPR deletes the term “consumer” from the call wait time SQM benchmark rule, and the benchmark therefore would apply to all calls.

Note that the revised NOPR now explicitly states that any billing cancelations or corrections due to meter reading errors, or any other error caused by the EDC, will not be counted against the supplier.

The revised NOPR maintains a new deadline for filing SQM reports of 15 days after the end of the applicable month. Currently, suppliers have 30 days to file SQM reports.

Document No. 219426  (07/19/2024)
First Revised Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking Rule Chapter 515-7-8 Service Quality Standards For Certificated Marketers And Regulated Providers

See also:  Parent Docket: 15296
Service Quality Measures for the Certified Natural Gas Marketers – Rulemaking