Texas Retail Provider To Pay $300,000 Under Settlement With PUC Staff -- EnergyChoiceMatters.com

Texas Retail Provider To Pay $300,000 Under Settlement With PUC Staff

August 11, 2023

Email This Story
Copyright 2010-23 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

The following story is brought free of charge to readers by VertexOne, the exclusive EDI provider of EnergyChoiceMatters.com

Ambit Texas, LLC would pay $300,000 under a settlement with Staff of the Public Utility Commission of Texas to resolve alleged violations of 16 TAC § 25.483(j), related to disconnection of service.

Under 16 TAC § 25.483(j), a REP having disconnection authority under the provision of subsection (b) of that section shall not authorize a disconnection for nonpayment of electric service for any customer in a county in which an extreme weather emergency occurs, as defined by rule

The settlement states, "From November 1, 2020, through September 1, 2022, Ambit authorized the disconnection for nonpayment of electric service for 905 customers located in counties affected by extreme weather emergencies as defined in 16 TAC § 25.483(j). All disconnections were to be completed during the pendency of the emergency."

The settlement states, "The transmission and distribution utilities (TDUs) that received Ambit’s requests to disconnect service for nonpayment completed 136 of the authorized disconnections."

The settlement states, "873 of the 905 disconnect orders issued in error were sent on six days during the 22-month period. Ambit indicates that four discrete events contributed to the orders being erroneously issued, including initial complications relating to implementation of system coding changes designed to improve compliance, a TDU leaving two counties off all its extreme weather moratorium market notices, and two instances of human error."

The settlement states that Ambit asserts it has implemented the following protective measures to prevent future violations of 16 TAC § 25.483(j) from occurring, and will continuously work to implement measures designed to prevent errors going forward:

a. Every business day prior to issuance of disconnect orders, Ambit conducts a review of communications from each TDU (which is a manual process) to flag counties that have been designated as having a heat advisory or the previous day’s highest temperature did not exceed 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature is predicted to remain at or below that level for the next 24 hours anywhere in the county, according to the nearest National Weather Service (NWS) reports. All counties identified in these reviews are then flagged in the Ambit system to prevent the creation and issuance of a disconnect for nonpayment request for ESIIDs in those counties.
b. Previously, Ambit monitored the NWS website by having a person periodically review it to identify extreme weather events. Starting in January 2023, Ambit transformed this process into a more systematic control. Specifically, Ambit now executes a computer query every 10 minutes to actively monitor NWS forecasts to determine days likely to lead to heat advisories and actively monitors the NWS website for relevant advisories (which are not specific to the retail electric industry) to begin adjusting processes as early as possible.
c. Ambit also independently conducts a daily manual review of the NWS site prior to issuance of any disconnect orders to determine if conditions for an extreme weather emergency have already been met within the state and, if so, to determine any counties that would be excluded from disconnects for nonpayment after the effective date and time of that moratorium.
d. Ambit holds issuance of all DNP orders upon receipt of notice of an extreme weather moratorium to allow time to add moratorium protection into Ambit’s systems and ensure orders are not going to the TDUs after such notification.
e. Ambit also monitors the TDU and NWS communications throughout the day whenever issued as an additional control designed to identify any counties added throughout the day and enter such counties into the system to support the immediate cancellation of issued-but-unexecuted disconnect for nonpayment orders and prevent the issuance of additional orders.
f. Beginning in June 2023, Ambit initiated a process to issue reconnect orders to immediately cancel inadvertently issued disconnect for nonpayment orders.
g. Ambit is actively working to automate the moratorium protection creation in its systems based on NWS extreme weather alerts and data. This new control is designed to remove the opportunity for human error and to shorten the time between receiving an NWS extreme weather alert and stopping the system-generated disconnect for nonpayment orders to further reduce inadvertent issuance of such orders. Ambit anticipates this capability will be implemented by December 31, 2023.

The settlement states, "Should Ambit authorize any disconnections for nonpayment during an extreme weather emergency to be completed during the pendency of the emergency going forward, Ambit will take all actions necessary to ensure that the disconnections are not completed, including submission of precautionary reconnect orders."

Docket 55337

ADVERTISEMENT
NEW Jobs on RetailEnergyJobs.com:
• NEW! -- Senior Billing Subject Matter - (Remote) -- -- Retail Supplier
• Retail Energy Account Manager

Email This Story

HOME