Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. Friday (2/28) proposed enhancements to a program that would allow more than 54,000 of its customers to choose their electricity supplier as early as July.
The first electric utility in Pennsylvania to propose a customer choice pilot program, PP&L filed its plan last October for review by the state Public Utility Commission. On Friday, PP&L proposed enhancements that will make the program better simulate the competitive marketplace.
Other electric utilities also filed pilot programs this week under a PUC plan to test customer choice throughout Pennsylvania.
"The pilot program is an important step toward full customer choice for all Pennsylvania electric customers," said William F. Hecht, PP&L's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "PP&L has been a leader in bringing choice to electric customers and a strong supporter of the Pennsylvania pilot program. These programs give electric customers throughout the state the opportunity to choose their electric supplier, and open new markets for PP&L."
The Pennsylvania pilot program will be the largest in the United States. About 250,000 electric customers from all the major investor-owned electric utilities in Pennsylvania will be able to choose from among competing suppliers of electricity, including PP&L.
"As part of the pilot programs, PP&L will offer generation priced at competitive market levels to customers throughout Pennsylvania," Hecht said. "We intend to compete for our own customers and the customers of other utilities. We're confident that PP&L will be very competitive in this emerging energy marketplace." Under PP&L's enhanced pilot plan, customers would shop for the electricity that enters their homes or businesses, and also for "capacity," or the assurance that power plants are available and capable to generate the electricity. The same supplier will provide energy and capacity.
The addition of capacity increases the amount of credit PP&L can offer to its customers who choose to shop, increasing potential savings.
"By filing our pilot program last fall, we have started the process of learning what consumers want in a competitive electricity marketplace," Hecht said. "Based on the input we received from our customers and the PUC during the last five months, we've been able to enhance and improve our proposed pilot program."
PP&L is asking the PUC to approve its plan as soon as possible. If the proposal is approved, PP&L will start educating customers as early as May 1 about participation in the program and customers could begin shopping for their electricity supplier as early as July. About 5 percent of PP&L's customers will have the opportunity to pick the company that supplies their electricity.
Under the pilot program, PP&L will continue to provide customer service, deliver electricity and maintain electric lines. There will be no additional electric lines brought into homes or businesses, and all existing customer services will continue.
Customers who participate will receive a credit of 2.1 to 2.5 cents on their bills for each kilowatt-hour of electricity they purchase in the competitive market. The credit will vary based on customer class -- residential, commercial or industrial. A customer's net savings will reflect the cost of electricity purchased by the customer in the competitive marketplace compared to the customer's credit.
After the PUC approves the program, all PP&L customers will receive information on the program, how it works and how customers can enroll. Customers who enroll in the pilot program will be part of the first group of customers eligible under state law to participate in full customer choice. Pennsylvania law phases-in customer choice beginning as early as 1999 with about one-third of the state's electric customers. All customers will have choice as early as 2001.