| (i) do not purchase electricity under a utility's residential
rate schedule; and
(ii) do not purchase electricity under a utility's
municipal or school rate schedule; and
(iii) do not purchase electricity under a utility's
rate schedule that is based on metered or estimated demand during
the twelve month period ending December 31, 2000.
(C) Industrial demand-metered--all customers identified
by an ESI who:
(i) do not purchase electricity under a utility's residential
rate schedule; and
(ii) purchase electricity under a utility's rate schedule
that is based on a metered demand; and
(iii) purchase electricity under a utility's industrial
rate schedules (or are identified as industrial by the utility's rate
code if the utility does not have industrial rate schedules) or have
filed a manufacturing or processing tax exemption certificate with
the utility.
(D) Commercial and all other demand-metered--all customers
identified by an ESI who:
(i) do not purchase electricity under a utility's residential
rate schedule; and
(ii) do not come within the definition of the industrial
demand metered customer class; and
(iii) purchase electricity under a utility's rate schedule
that is based on a metered demand.
(E) Other--The other customer class is composed of
all customers identified by an ESI who:
(i) purchase electricity under a utility's rate schedule
that is based on known usage patterns, not actual metered data (i.e.,
unmetered loads); or
(ii) purchase electricity under a utility's municipal
or school rate schedules; or
(iii) purchase electricity under utility rate schedules
applicable to seasonal agricultural use, such as cotton gins, irrigation,
or grain elevators.
(3) Electric service identifier (ESI)--premise-based
identifier assigned to each electric service delivery point between
a transmission and distribution utility and an end-use load, which
is used in the Texas customer registration system and the Electric
Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) settlement system.
(4) Lottery--fair process in which ESIs or aggregator
packets of ESIs are selected for participation in a pilot project
by using standard statistical methods for simple random sampling;
each ESI or aggregator packet of ESIs should have an equal chance
of actually being selected.
(5) Participation--occurs when the customer takes service
from a retail electric provider that is not the incumbent, integrated
utility.
(e) Requirements for participants that are not retail
customers.
(1) A REP must be certified by the commission pursuant
to §25.107 of this title (relating to Certification of Retail
Electric Providers) prior to participating in pilot projects established
pursuant to this section. An affiliated REP shall not participate
in the certificated service area of the electric utility with which
it is affiliated.
(2) An aggregator, other than a self-aggregator, must
be registered with the commission pursuant to §25.111 of this
title (relating to Registration of Aggregators) prior to participating
in pilot projects established pursuant to this section.
(3) A power generation company must be registered with
the commission pursuant to §25.109 of this title (relating to
Registration of Power Generation Companies) prior to participating
in pilot projects established pursuant to this section. A utility
need not be registered as a power generation company in order to generate
power for sale during the pilot projects.
(4) A power marketer must be registered with the commission
pursuant to §25.105 of this title (relating to Registration and
Reporting by Power Marketers) prior to participating in pilot projects
established pursuant to this section.
(5) An independent transmission organization outside
of ERCOT may require a market participant to register with that organization
in order to become a wholesale buyer and seller of energy across the
transmission system.
(f) Customer education. Customer education for the
pilot projects shall be conducted as part of the statewide customer
education campaign for introducing customer choice. Included in this
campaign will be announcements regarding the opportunity to participate
in the pilot project and instructions on obtaining further information
about the pilot project. The commission shall mail information written
in English and in Spanish explaining the pilot project to eligible
non-residential customers no later than March 1, 2001, and to eligible
residential customers no later than April 15, 2001. The utility shall
provide the commission or its designee with customer information necessary
to implement this subsection. For purposes of this subsection, §25.272(g)(1)
of this title (relating to Code of Conduct for Electric Utilities
and Their Affiliates) does not apply with regard to proprietary customer
information released to the commission or its designee. The mailing
may contain information including, but not limited to:
(1) a description of the pilot project;
(2) the commission's central call center phone number
and Internet website operating to respond to customer questions and
requests for information;
(3) a list of REPs certified as of a date certain,
including the telephone number and, if available, Internet website
address for each REP, and a statement disclosing that the REP list
is continually updated and how the customer can obtain an updated
list; and
(4) a clear, plain language description of customer
choice and the price to beat.
(g) Customer choice during pilot projects. The following
procedures shall be used for customers to participate in the pilot
projects within the designated time periods for each applicable customer
class.
(1) Administration. For all customer classes, a REP
shall submit requests to switch customers participating in the pilot
projects to the registration agent beginning on May 31, 2001, and
power delivery in conjunction with the pilot projects may begin on
June 1, 2001. For purposes of this section, any electronic submission
to the utility shall be executed using a standard electronic data
interface (EDI) protocol (814) to be included in the utility's compliance
filing.
(A) Except where explicitly stated otherwise in this
section, a REP shall electronically submit switch requests to the
utility for counting and validation purposes prior to submitting such
requests to the registration agent. The utility shall maintain a weekly
updated list of non-matching, rejected ESIs on its pilot project Internet
website.
(B) Except for the industrial demand-metered class,
there shall be no out-of-cycle meter reading requests submitted for
purposes of the pilot project before July 1, 2001.
(C) Members of the non-residential customer classes
may elect to waive the verification and recision process of the registration
agent.
(D) A participating customer shall have the right to
change from one REP to another REP in accordance with the switching
procedures adopted by the commission.
(E) Beginning April 16, 2001, a REP shall electronically
report to the utility any switch request for a customer or an aggregation
packet with a listing of the ESIs to be switched to the REP as set
forth in this paragraph. After the utility confirms that a non-residential
ESI or aggregation packet is on the associated participant list, the
utility shall submit the ESI to the registration agent. The registration
agent shall keep a record of all the ESIs identified by the utility
for participation in the pilot. The REP shall be responsible for submitting
to the registration agent the ESIs associated with the switch request
to serve. If the ESI identified by the REP matches an ESI identified
by the utility, then the registration agent shall allow the registration
process to continue.
(F) Because the utility is assigned the responsibility
to administer the pilot project, except for complaints arising under §25.272
of this title, which may be made in accordance with procedures established
under that section, a claim by any party of unreasonableness associated
with the administration of the pilot project will first be addressed
by the pilot implementation working group established by subsection
(j)(4) of this section. If the complaint is not resolved within ten
working days of initial notification to the pilot implementation working
group, the complaint may be filed with the commission.
(2) Residential customer class.
Cont'd... |
