News Stories

The NRG companies filed comments Liberty Utilities’ Purchase of Receivables (POR) Terms and Conditions and Energy Service Supplier Agreement (ESSA) are fundamentally flawed. Thus, for the reasons set forth more fully below, the NRG Retail Companies request that the Commission direct Liberty to revise the Terms and Conditions and ESSA.

As background, on August 16, 2024, the Commission issued an Order Approving Settlement Agreement authorizing Liberty to implement a POR program. The Order also continued this proceeding to a second phase for the Commission to review the Company’s proposed revisions to its ESSA and Terms and Conditions. 

On September 4, 2024, the Commission issued a Supplemental Order of Notice that, among other things, directed the Company to file proposed changes to the Terms and Conditions and ESSA and offered parties an opportunity to submit comments on those proposed changes.9 In accordance with the Notice, on September 24, 2024, Liberty filed proposed revisions to the Terms and Conditions and ESSA.

In response the NRG Retail Companies submitted their comments regarding the revised Terms and Conditions and ESSA.

Excerpts from NRG Comments:

{***} LIBERTY SHOULD NOT BE PERMITTED TO CHANGE THE DISCOUNT PERCENTAGE RATE CALCULATION

Liberty has modified the description of the formula for calculating the Discount Percentage Rate from what was approved in the Settlement Agreement. In doing so, Liberty has fundamentally changed parts of the calculation.

First and foremost, by definition, Energy Service cannot be provided by a CEPS. In fact, the definition of Energy Service specifically denotes that it is energy “supplied to a Customer who is not receiving Energy Service from a Supplier.”15 Moreover, by adding the emphasized language, Liberty has substantially changed the Uncollectible Percentage calculation to one that will, among other things, result in different Uncollectible Percentages for each and every supplier. The Discount Percentage Rate calculation was a key element of the Settlement Agreement. Had Liberty proposed the language that it is now proposing to describe the Uncollectible Percentage calculation, the NRG Retail Companies would not have agreed to the settlement. Liberty should not be permitted to unilaterally rewrite the terms of that agreement. Thus, to ensure the terms of the Settlement Agreement are satisfied, the NRG Retail Companies request that the Commission order Liberty to incorporate the entire description of the Discount Percentage Rate calculation from the Settlement Agreement into the Terms and Conditions without change.” {***}

{***} LIBERTY SHOULD NOT BE PERMITTED TO RETURN THE CUSTOMERS OF EXISTING CEPS TO DEFAULT SERVICE AFTER POR IMPLEMENTATION

If this provision is implemented, customers who made an affirmative choice to choose an offer made by CEPS will be returned to default service. While the NRG Retail Companies appreciate Liberty’s desire to have all CEPS sign the new ESSA, if an existing CEPS is not utilizing consolidated billing, there is no reason that Liberty and the CEPS could not continue to operate under the existing agreement. Moreover, even if an existing CEPS is using Consolidated Billing Service, there is a far less drastic remedy available than returning all the CEPS’ customers to default service in direct contravention of the choice made by those customers and to the customers’ potential detriment if the customer is purchasing a product from a CEPS that is not available from Liberty (e.g., long-term fixed price, added renewable content, lower price, etc.). Thus, the NRG Retail Companies request that the Commission require Liberty to modify this provision to indicate that if an existing CEPS does not timely enter into a new agreement, all of the CEPS’ customers will be moved to Standard Billing Service.” {***}

NRG comments further explain that under the current supplier agreement, executed by the supplier and Liberty and setting forth obligations for each party, permits retail suppliers to bill customers under utility consolidated billing without POR, or through dual billing. This existing authorization to use UCB without POR, absent the adoption of Liberty’s sought changes, would ostensibly continue, and apparently mandate that Liberty offer UCB without POR until otherwise ordered by the PUC.

Under Liberty’s proposed new supplier agreement retail suppliers would be allowed to use consolidated billing with POR or dual billing. The new supplier agreement would not allow UCB without POR.

Liberty said that a settlement addressing design elements of POR “contemplates” that Liberty would only provide consolidated billing with POR, with the current non-POR consolidated billing terminated.

Liberty contends that, “utilities cannot be expected to maintain two consolidated billing services, one that includes POR and one without for those that do not sign, and the approved Settlement Agreement in this case contemplates Liberty providing only consolidated billing with POR.”

Under Liberty proposal, any supplier that does not sign the revised supplier agreement, which mandates either UCB with POR or dual billing as the only two options, could hold up implementation of POR, by such supplier enforcing terms in the existing supplier agreement that require Liberty to offer non-POR UCB.

Liberty says it would drop customers of any suppliers not executing the new supplier agreement.to default service.

 Liberty said that under its preferred solution is that POR would be implemented on May 1, 2025.  However, if the requirement to sign the new supplier agreement is not adopted by the PUC, Liberty said that the POR launch would be a “soft target” as Liberty would have to wait until all suppliers sign the new supplier agreement.

Liberty contends that dropping customers to default service, if the customer’s supplier does not execute the new supplier agreement, would ensure that no supplier is able to hold the roll-out of POR “hostage.”

NRG argued that for suppliers currently using dual billing, there is no need to compel the suppliers to execute the new agreement or to drop the supplier’s customers to default service absent such execution.

If a supplier does not sign the new supplier agreement and is using UCB, then NRG argues that Liberty should be required to move all the supplier’s customers to dual billing. 

Liberty said its proposal because it was concerned that some suppliers may not be equipped to engage in dual billing.

NRG also objected to language in Liberty’s proposed tariff that NRG said would result in a unique uncollectibles discount rate for each supplier, by calculating the discount based on the specific supplier’s billings.

NRG notes that this supplier-specific method for calculating the uncollectibles discount rate departs from the settlement adopted by the PUC.

NRG Comments (10/08/2024)

DE-23-003 

Liberty Utilities – Proposed Purchase of Receivables Program