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ME PUC Seeks Additional Comments on Time of Use Questions
Dockets:
2025-00176
,Maine
Category: Maine
The Maine Public Utilities Commission issued a procedural order and request for further comments on P.L. 2025 Ch. 196, , Section 4 in the commission’s investigation of time of use rates for delivery and standard offer service for investor-owned transmission and distribution utilities.
Responses are requested on or before February 23, 2026.
As a result of responsive comments filed by the parties on January 9, 2026, Commission Staff requests further comments on the following questions.”
- Please comment on the suggestion by Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP) that it would be possible to identify irregular work schedules or energy-limiting behavior using AMI data. Do you agree that having either of these characteristics indicates that a customer is an economically vulnerable customer (EVC)?
- Please comment on the list of additional criteria proposed by AARP Maine for identifying EVCs.
- Please discuss whether there is a distinction (for practical purposes) between “exemption” (Office of the Public Advocate (OPA)), “exclusion” (AARP Maine), and “automatic opt-out” (Versant Power) from TOU or other time-varying rates.
- Please comment on the specific tools that the Commission should consider with regards to OPA’s suggestion that “…the Commission should ensure that lower income customers have the tools that enable them to shift their usage to achieve lower rates and the peak reductions intended under a TOU rate design.”
- Please comment on AARP Maine’s suggestion to use ALICE data in the identification of senior citizens and economically vulnerable residential customers. Does the use of ALICE data cover both the identification of senior citizens and economically vulnerable residential customers? Are there considerations other than economic vulnerability that the Commission should consider when seeking to avoid negative impacts of TOU rates on “residential customers who are senior citizens?” If so, please describe.
- Should a customer’s participation in a utility’s oxygen pump and ventilator program be considered by the Commission as a means of identifying customers under subsections 1 and 2 of Public Law 2025, Ch. 196, Section 4?
