Electricity – Rates
Application
Direct Energy Regulated Services (“DERS”) applied for approval of the disposition of its 2022 bad debt and late payment charge deferral accounts for its default rate tariff (“DRT”) and regulated rate tariff (“RRT”) and to recover $29,248 in under-collected 2022 Rider C revenues. DERS requested permission to recover a total of $4,373,252 from DRT and RRT customers in 2023.
Decision
The AUC approved deferral account balances and true-up balances for DERS. The AUC further approved DRT and RRT Rider C1 rates which would be in effect from June 1 to August 31, 2023. The AUC also approved amounts included in the monthly gas cost flow-through rate (“GCFR”) for June to August 2023.
Applicable Legislation
Regulated Rate Option Regulation, Alta Reg 262/2005.
Pertinent Issues
DERS submitted its bad debt and late payment charge deferral account balances under the negotiated settlement approved in Decision 26207-D01-2021 for approval. The AUC determined that DERS correctly calculated the deferral account balances for 2022 and approved the collection of $3,283,326 and $1,060,677 for the 2022 DRT and RRT bad debt and late payment charge deferral account balances, respectively.
DERS requested in this proceeding to add the 2022 DRT and RRT Rider C true-up balances to the respective DRT and RRT deferral account balances to be recovered through the 2023 rider. DERS submitted that it under-collected $5,698 from DRT customers and $23,550 from RRT customers resulting from the 2022 Rider C disposition and argued that combining the applications in one proceeding would be more efficient. The AUC approved the recovery of the applied-for balances and the addition of the balances to the 2022 bad debt and late payment charge deferral accounts for disposition in 2023.
To recover the DRT and RRT bad debt and late payment charge deferral account balances, DERS proposed to separate RRT deferral account balances between energy and non-energy, with the energy amount allocated to each rate class using load allocation percentages, and the non-energy amount allocated to each rate class using the number of bills allocation percentages. The DRT deferral account balances were also separated between energy and non-energy. The entire DRT energy amount will be collected through the GCFR. The DRT non-energy amount is allocated to each rate class, using the number of bills allocation percentages for each class in 2022. The AUC approved the recovery or refund as proposed by DERS.
DERS proposed Rider C1 was developed using a forecast of DRT and RRT customer totals over the collection period. The AUC found that a summary of the 2023 Rider C1 revenues would be beneficial to assess whether future rate riders are required. Accordingly, and as proposed by DERS, the AUC directed DERS to file an application that included the actual RRT and DRT Rider C1 revenues and refunds by rate class, the corresponding approved balances, and the resulting differences.
