AN ACT CONCERNING REVISIONS TO THE UTILITY STATUTES.

This bill requires electric brokers to register with Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC). “Electric brokers” are entities that arrange for the sale or purchase of power but do not take title to the power. The bill requires DPUC to maintain a publicly available list of brokers and makes related changes. It makes a minor change in the registration requirements for aggregators (entities that gather customers together to negotiate the purchase of electricity from competitive electric suppliers).

The bill allows licensed electric suppliers to act as brokers or aggregators without having to get a registration and makes minor related changes.

The bill allows DPUC to retain consultants to help in proceedings before federal agencies. The affected DPUC-regulated company bears the costs of the consultants.

1. expands public notice requirements for proposed rate changes;

2. bars electric utilities from denying service during the heating season for hardship customers who cannot pay their bills;

3. requires that when DPUC issues requests for proposals and other procurements of electricity, it do so in an uncontested case (many DPUC proceedings, notably rate cases, are conducted as contested cases which are quasi-judicial in nature);

4. requires the banking commissioner to set the index used to determine the interest rate to be paid on the security deposits paid to utilities, competitive telecommunications providers, and competitive electric suppliers;

5. gives DPUC 90, rather than 30, business days to issue a preliminary finding after receiving a complaint of retaliation against an employee for making a whistle-blowing complaint about a utility or a related company; and

6. allows the DPUC chairperson to name a designee to participate on various state and regional committees dealing with issues such as utility regulation, climate change, and low-income energy assistance.

The bill requires electric brokers to register with DPUC. It defines an electric broker as a person, municipality, regional water authority, or the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority (CRRA), if the entity arranges or acts as an agent, negotiator, or intermediary in buying or selling electric power between an end use customer and a supplier, but does not take title to any of the power. To be considered a broker, (1) the entity cannot be engaged in the actual purchase and resale of power and (2) the customer must contract for power directly with an electric supplier.

The bill requires brokers to register with DPUC under the same conditions as electric aggregators. The registration requirement does not apply to municipalities, regional water authorities, or CRRA acting as a broker under certain conditions, such as brokering power sales for customers in their boundaries.

Among other things, an applicant for a registration must provide DPUC with information on its corporate structure and disclose whether it or its affiliates or officers have been or are under investigation for violations of consumer protection laws. The bill requires brokers to comply with the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act and the National Labor Relations Act as a condition of maintaining registration, as is currently the case for aggregators. It subjects brokers that fail to comply with registration conditions or violate applicable laws to civil penalties, registration suspension or revocation, or prohibition on accepting new customers, imposed in a contested proceeding, as is currently the case for aggregators.

By law, a registration application for electric aggregators must contain information about the applicant's corporate structure. The bill requires that this information for both aggregators and brokers include the names and background information on corporate affiliates, rather than the financial names and statements of these affiliates.

The bill allows nonprofit electric cooperatives to supply power to and transact other business with electric brokers and makes other minor changes.

By law, utilities must mail their customers notice of a proposed rate change at least one week before DPUC holds a hearing on the proposal. The bill additionally requires that this notice be sent no more than four weeks before the hearing. In addition to the information already required to be in the notice, the bill requires that the notice include (1) the date, time, and location of the hearing and (2) a statement that customers can provide written comments to DPUC on the proposal or appear at the hearing.

By law, electric companies and municipal electric utilities cannot terminate or refuse to reinstate residential electric service to “hardship cases” from November 1 to May 1. The bill additionally bars the utilities from denying service to such customer during this period. By law, hardship customers include those on public assistance; those whose only source of income is Social Security, veterans, or unemployment benefits; and those with a sick member of their household.

The bill allows DPUC to retain consultants to assist its staff in federal proceedings by providing expertise (1) in areas in which it does not have staff expertise or (2) to supplement DPUC's staff expertise. The provision applies to proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Communications Commission.

The affected company regulated by DPUC must bear the reasonable and proper expenses of the consultants and pay the costs when and how DPUC directs. The expenses must be apportioned among the affected companies in proportion to their revenue, as reported to DPUC when it assesses its administrative costs among the companies it regulates. The costs cannot exceed $ 250,000 per proceeding, including any appeals, in any calendar year unless DPUC finds good cause for exceeding the limit. DPUC must allow the affected entities to recover these costs in rate cases, if applicable. (DPUC does not conduct rate cases for certain types of companies. )

DPUC has similar authority under current law to retain consultants in connection with its own proceedings.

Yea

Nay

(02/26/2009)