ALJ/RAB/avs Agenda ID #2032

Ratesetting

8/21/2003 Item 81

Decision PROPOSED DECISION OF ALJ BARNETT (Mailed 4/3/2003)

BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Application of Pacific Gas and Electric Company for Verification, Consolidation, and Approval of Costs and Revenues in the Transition Revenue Account.

Application 98-07-003 (Post PX Direct Access Credits) (Filed July 1, 1998)

(See Appendix A for appearances.)

OPINION ADOPTING A POST POWER EXCHANGE
DIRECT ACCESS CREDIT FOR
PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY
AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON COMPANY

I. Summary

This is another decision that addresses the direct access (DA) credit. We recently set forth the background leading up to this installment in Decision (D.) 02-07-032, which we repeat for clarity.¹ This proceeding is to determine a new method of computing the charges to be paid by direct access customers to Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and SCE, and to determine the reasonableness of the utilities' current DA credit methods. This decision finds reasonable the direct access credit methods used by PG&E and SCE since the demise of the Power Exchange (PX) and approves of "bottoms-up" billing for direct access customers. In bottoms-up billing, the utilities bill only for distribution and transmission service; the customer purchases electricity from a third party. Thus, under the "bottoms-up" approach, customers pay for the services they purchase from the utilities, including any nonbypassable charges. This is in contrast to DA customers paying the same charges as bundled customers and then receiving a credit for the generation component of their bill.