Small Cases Can Have Large Consequences
Posted on November 10, 2005 by oregoncub
Tags, Consumers and Utility Customers, Utility Regulation
CUB occasionally works on really big cases at the Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC), cases that make the front page of local newspapers, cases that affect the region’s economy and environment and thousands of people’s utility service. And then there are the other cases, cases that will never be front page news, cases that affect a smaller percentage of the population, but which we consider to still be very important because the effects might be substantially greater in those affected people’s lives.
Recently we filed testimony in one of those latter types of cases, AR 500. The primary issue is whether to approve a system of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), a way of connecting the meters at PGE customers’ houses to a system that can “read” the electricity usage without the company having to send round an employee to read the meter in person. This primary issue is still being debated, and CUB is reserving judgment, saying in our Comments (filed jointly with the Community Action Directors of Oregon) that the “benefits and cost effectiveness of AMI… will need to be demonstrated in future OPUC dockets.”
The secondary issue within this case was whether to allow PGE to disconnect a customer for non-payment, without having spoken to an adult at the residence, but having only left phone messages. A decision on this issue was easier for CUB to reach: “We oppose eliminating the requirement for a site visit in cases of impending disconnection of utility service where the utility has not reached the customer or another adult at the residence by phone… A telephone message will not suffice.”
No one should be surprised with a shutoff. We don’t feel that it’s appropriate for PGE to be able to turn off the electrical power to your house or apartment without making sure someone there knows about it beforehand. Really, our opposition to this request feels like the least we can do, and we feel that a final site visit is the least PGE can do.
Why is this so important?
First, because we know that shutoffs present huge difficulties in terms of instituting new service, and in just getting through the day without power.
Second, because we know that only about two thirds of PGE’s machine-operated calls make it through to a person. That leaves one third without phone contact! That number seems high, but the poor among us tend to move more often, may perhaps be working multiple jobs and rarely home, and often live without a phone (a recent survey of Oregon Food Bank basket recipients showed that 21% of those people had no phone service).
Third, because it’s the right thing to do. Face-to-face notice of disconnection is not an outrageous thing to ask of a basic utility service provider. To again use the words of our Comments, “[W]e do not find the requirement for a single final site visit in the case of an impending disconnection… to be onerous.”
Millions of people in this country are living in poverty. That number has increased in the past year. CUB takes seriously its mission to protect residential customers – all of them; and while, thankfully, most of the people we represent will never face disconnection, we know that for those who will have to deal with a shutoff, it is a major problem. Hopefully, the PUC will agree with our arguments and deny PGE the requested change.
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03/10/17 | 0 Comments | Small Cases Can Have Large Consequences