Connecticut regulators last week issued a draft decision thattakes a mid-course review of commercial and industrial natural gasunbundling in an effort to fine-tune the state’s two-year-oldprogram. The draft also was seen as a “first step” toward possiblyachieving customer choice in the state’s residential gas marketfurther down the road.

“As you can see, we needed to fine-tune [commercial andindustrial unbundling] a lot. I mean there are a lot of customersusing it. There’s no question about that. But there have been acouple of glitches…people who’ve been left short,” said BerylLyons, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Department of PublicUtility Control (PUC).

In the Phase I draft, state regulators and market participantsrevisited a number of issues, including the need for shorter, lesscomplex transportation agreements between LDCs and gas suppliers;the need for simplified and uniform tariffs; firm transportationrate design; nomination procedures for gas deliveries; balancingand capacity release. The draft ruling is expected to become finalon July 22.

The commission’s next step is to apply the revisions to thestate’s three LDCs – Connecticut Natural Gas, Southern ConnecticutGas and Yankee Gas Services, which combined serve about 476,000 gascustomers in the state. “We would open up each of the three gascompanies prior rate cases to put into effect the mid-coursecorrections that are discussed in the draft,” noted Lyons. Thiswill be followed by the commission undertaking Phase II of thereview, where it will decide the fate of customer choice forresidential gas users.

At this stage, “we don’t know if there’s going to be residentialunbundling” in Connecticut, a state with a large poor population,Lyons told NGI. “Most of our suburbs don’t have gas service. Gas ismainly in the inner cities,” she noted, adding that the state’sdecision on whether to go ahead with residential unbundling willinvolve “a lot of social considerations” as a result. “You’ve gotone company here whose uncollectibles are just unbelievable. Theyserve the two poorest cities in the state,” she said.

“By the time we open up the three dockets for the three gascompanies, get all of their tariffs in place and then begin withall of the myriad of issues that have to be dealt with in order toget to the potential for gas unbundling, it’s going to be at leastanother year” before state regulators decide whether customerchoice is a viable option in Connecticut, Lyons noted.

The commission will make the final decision on residentialunbundling, she said, but added that state lawmakers arecontemplating forming a task force to review the customer-choiceissue – which could be a precursor to legislation. “I would watchto see what happens in next year’s legislative session.”

Susan Parker

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