Maryland Working Group Files Standard Electronic Transactions for Gas Market

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October 25, 2010

A Maryland working group has submitted a Maryland Gas Standard manual to implement standard electronic transactions for the retail gas market required by RM 35.

The working group asked that the PSC approve the standards expeditiously so they may be used effective December 1, 2010 for those LDCs prepared to move forward with the standards.  Since LDCs are at various stages of implementation, the working group did not recommend, however, that the standards become mandatory immediately.

The working group agreed that information should be exchanged through files in standard extensible markup language (XML) schemas over secured websites.  Using this method, transactions were developed to accomplish the following tasks: 1) the request for and the sending of pre-enrollment information; 2) the management of customer enrollments, customer drops, and customer switches under various circumstances; 3) communication of usage and billing information including rate changes, allowance for taxes and tax exemptions, and provision for budget billing; and 4) transmission of financial data including reconciliation of financial data in special circumstances and communication regarding write-offs.

For each transaction initiated by a competitive gas supplier, the distribution company will respond with an electronic receipt noting the type of transaction and the time the transaction was uploaded.  Although suppliers may send as many transactions (files) as they wish each day, the LDC will upload only one file per day per transaction type per supplier.  The file uploaded will be the last file sent.  The cutoff time for receipt of a supplier file is 4:59 p.m. eastern time.

All transactions, except in certain circumstances the pre-enrollment transaction, require the customer account number.

If the supplier does not have the customer's account number (but does have consent, which need not be provided to the LDC), the supplier may request pre-enrollment information using only the customer's name and service address.  If only a single match is found, the LDC will provide the information.  If no match or multiple matches are found, the information will not be provided.  Obtaining information without the account number is a non-consensus item from the working group, as Baltimore Gas & Electric and Columbia object to the transaction since the requests will often not locate a customer, and thus the companies believe that the transaction will not be used frequently.

Pre-enrollment information will be transmitted to the supplier the next business day, except at Washington Gas Light where the transaction will be processed daily.

The working group report is Maillogs 126143 and 126146

Separately, Staff has recommended approval of BGE tariff changes, effective November 1, 2010, that would add references to the uniform electronic transactions developed by the working group.

   
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