Press Release

PUC Adopts Mechanism to Facilitate Account Look-Up for Natural Gas Suppliers, with Customer Permission

Published on 7/8/2015

Filed under: Gas

HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) today adopted a mechanism for natural gas suppliers (NGSs) to access, with customer permission, natural gas distribution company (NGDC) customer account numbers in instances where the account number is not available from either the customer or the Eligible Customer List and where the enrollment is occurring in a public venue.

“Shopping in the natural gas retail market is, unfortunately, not as robust as in the retail electric market, due in large part to the currently low price of natural gas. It is imperative that all stakeholders take advantage of this point in the evolution of the retail gas market to review and set in place ways to encourage shopping,” said Commissioner Pamela A. Witmer in a statement. “The enhancements made as a result of today’s proceeding are a step in the right direction to help ensure that customers have the necessary tools in place to easily avail themselves of the advantages of a vigorous competitive market.”

The Commission voted 5-0 to adopt the Final Order, which provides NGSs with access to NGDC account numbers of potential customers during public sales events when the account number is not easily attainable. The account number look-up mechanism follows a similar system implemented in July 2013 for electric generation suppliers.

On April 9, 2015, the Commission adopted a Tentative Order, which recommended that the PUC give Pennsylvania’s major PUC-jurisdictional NGDCs six months from the Final Order entry date to submit for approval an implementation plan detailing how they will establish a passcode-protected, secure website portal that will provide NGSs access to new customer account numbers. The mechanism would keep track of the usage of the system with the ability to identify who accessed what data and when. Information would be retained by the NGDC for three years and could be easily provided to regulators upon request. Today’s Order finalizes this recommendation.

NGSs will only have access to these websites after obtaining appropriate customer identification, as well as consent from the customer in the form of a signed Letter of Authorization. The look-up mechanism will only be used for customer-initiated enrollment transactions in public locations and not for enrollments that occur during door-to-door or telephone transactions.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission balances the needs of consumers and utilities; ensures safe and reliable utility service at reasonable rates; protects the public interest; educates consumers to make independent and informed utility choices; furthers economic development; and fosters new technologies and competitive markets in an environmentally sound manner.

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Docket No. M-2015-2468991

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