Duquesne Light Company's Default Service Plan

Data

DAT 00001

Question: What are the tranche sizes for the Residential, Small C&I and Medium C&I?

Answer: The tranche sizes can be calculated using the hourly load data provided on the Information Site. The percentage of the load that the tranches represent is available in the auction schedule published here: http://www.duquesnedsp.com/Portals/0/DUQ_Auction_Products_and_Schedule_DSP_VIII.pdf

DAT 00002

Question: When will you post the PLC for Residential & Street Lighting and Small C&I?

Answer: We are working on the data for the month end close and will send the latest PLC data by the end of the week (3/3).  We will be sending refreshed historical data for the Small C&I, Residential and Lighting and Medium C&I.

DAT 00003

Question: For the Historical PLC_NSPL_MW-Day spreadsheets. Is that the PLC/NSPL for the 1st of the month? For example, column A, has the dates listed as 1/1/2018 to 2/1/2017. Are the PLCs an average of the month or only for that specific day listed?

Answer: The Historical PLC_NSPL_MW Day values in the spreadsheets are actual values from the last day of the month of the date shown in column A .

DAT 00004

Question: In the "Historical Load HPS 2015-2016" load data file, unlike other load data, it doesn't split default and egs load data. Are they all default load, egs load or total load?

Answer: The load data provided is Historical Load for HPS customers that have been on default service during the period of time shown.  This load represents a small percentage (2-3%) of the total load that is not being serviced by EGSs (Retail Suppliers).  For this customer class, the amount of customers and load has been, historically, consistent and lacks the switching aspect of the other default service customer classes.  We did not provide the EGS served load at this time but are considering ways to provide this data in the future.     

DAT 00006

Question: What is the loss factor to go from wholesale meter to retail meter for Duquesne?

Answer:

The loss factors are as described in the tariff Section 4.7  Energy Scheduling.

Transmission losses = 0.8%

Distribution losses = calculated using Table 1 of the tariff according to Rate Schedule.

DAT 00007

Question: Can you please provide the LC&I historical PLC data for the same time frame as the other rate classes? Other rate classes have PLC data back to 2008 but the LC&I data is only Feb 2017.

Answer: Duquesne Light Company was able to provide the data from 2015 and 2016 for the large C&I customers.  While this is a different time period of data than was provided for the other market segments, we're hopeful that 2 years of data information will be sufficient.  

DAT 00008

Question: Could you post the most current PLC tags for the Medium C&I customers for the 2017/2018 Planning Year? Without that data being publicly posted to all bidders, then any bidder who is also a current supplier has an unfair informational advantage by knowing how tags were reset for the new Planning Year.

Answer: Additional data for the Medium C&I customers has been posted.  The most recent data includes the June PLC value for the Medium C&I load.

DAT 00009

Question: Looking at the customer count data for RES & SL (“Historical Loads 2011-2017 Residential and Lighting” file, “Customer Counts” tab), there is a steep reduction on customers count on both POLR LT and EGS LT. Total Customer count for both categories was 8,249 in May 2014 reducing to 985 by Dec 2014. Any insight on what drove the decrease on customer count?

Answer: During the period in question, May 2014 through December 2014, Duquesne Light Company was putting into production a new billing platform.  The integration of that new billing platform lead to the consolidation of accounts, as we shifted to a different account number/SA ID format, and the retirement of accounts that were found to be unnecessary to integrate into the new system.  The billing system was fully implemented in Q4 2014.  The numbers provided for 2017 are deemed to be accurate and should be used. 

DAT 00010

Question: Are the PLC and NSPL in the dataroom scaled by daily zonal scaling factor. Do we need to apply PJM RPM daily zonal scaling factor to get the PJM daily PLC?

Answer: PJM does not scale the daily PLC and NSPL because Duquesne Light Company provides the amounts to PJM already scaled. PJM applies a 1.0 scaling factor.

DAT 00011

Question: Does the hourly data through April 2019 reflect the 60 day PJM true up or is some of the data through that period based on initial settled volumes? If the answer is the latter, what is the period that reflects the 60 day true up?

Answer: Only data up to March 2019 reflects the 60 day PJM true up.   As of the date the data was compiled, no other 60 day true up data was available.

DAT 00012

Question: For Medium C& I customers, we noticed that there was a sharp drop in the PLC values for both GM>25 and GMH >25 classes between December 2018 and January 2019. This drop was more pronounced in the POLR customer segment. Since PLCs are reset every June, what is the reason for the drop in January 2019?

Answer: This change was likely due to the reassigning of rate classes to customers effective January 2019.

DAT 00013

Question: For Medium C& I load, we noticed that the total counts of the eligible (POLR + EGS) customers in Medium C & I in Duquesne had increased (5% for GM>25 and 4%for GMH >25) from December 2016 to January 2017. Is there any explanation for that?

Answer: This change was likely due to the reassigning of rate classes to customers effective January 2017. 

DAT 00014

Question: For Medium C& I load, we noticed that the total counts of the eligible (POLR + EGS) customers in Medium C & I had dropped significantly (20% for GM>25 and 24%for GMH >25) from December 2018 to January 2019. Is there any reason behind this drop?

Answer: This change was likely due to the reassigning of rate classes to customers effective January 2019.

DAT 00015

Question: In the historical capacity data provided by Duquesne on their website, we are seeing a significant increase in SCI PLC from December 2017 and 2018 to January 2018 and 2019, 5.7% and 16.0% increases, respectively. We are also seeing a corresponding decrease in the MCI PLC of -5.6% and -11.4% across the same periods.

Answer: Changes in the 1CP are influenced by the change in the 1CP date that changes every January.  Customers are evaluated each year and rate classes can be updated.  Reassignments will be reflected in changes in the data.

DAT 00016

Question: In both January 2018 and January 2019, the MCI customer class experienced a change in customers counts (along with a change in load and capacity peak share). It appears that the customers lost by the MCI class were almost entirely picked up by the SCI customer class. While we expect the capacity peak share to change at the start of every planning year in June, it is problematic for Default Service Providers if the customer class is being "reconstituted" in the middle of the planning year such that the existing class data does not represent the class moving forward. This shifting appears to have occurred with the SCI customer class in 2018 and 2019, with the SCI capacity peak share increasing by almost 20% in January 2019. To state the matter differently: to the extent that SCI gained load and capacity peak share in the middle of the planning year, if the load factor of the new customers coming to SCI is not consistent with the existing SCI customers, then the Default Service Provider can find themselves with significant risk with respect to their peak obligations. Does Duquesne expect to make intra-planning year shuffles between the customer classes again in January 2020? Or, does Duquesne's expect this "shuffling" to stop given that the redefinitions of MCI and LCI occurred already in January 2019?

Answer: Every year, Duquesne Light reviews and analyzes the Small and Medium commercial customers to ensure they are on the correct Distribution rate code for the upcoming year.  This analysis occurs every 4th quarter and changes are made on January 1st for the upcoming year.  The shifting of customer counts can occur when a customers demand reflects a need to change their rate code based on the previous year’s consumption data.  For example, a customer that exceeded 25 kW in 2018 but their demand in 2019 is less than 25 kW will be adjusted to reflect the new rate code (and Vice Versa).  This a tariff requirement that the Company reviews the Small and Medium customer classes to ensure customers are on the correct rate classification.  It is not foreseen that this tariff requirement will change in the upcoming years.  

DAT 00017

Question: For the Historical PLC_NSPL_MW-Day spreadsheets, is that the PLC/NSPL for the 1st of the month? Or are the PLCs an average of the month or only for that specific day listed? You have multiple days listed for one month, ie June 2019 has 6/6/2019 and 6/30/2019.

Answer: Analysis is typically done on the last day of the month and data would reflect that date.  In the case of June 2019, there was a request for an early snapshot and as a result there are two values.

DAT 00018

Question: Is there an intention to update the website with data that includes 6/1/23 before the auction?

Answer: Below is the total NSPL for POLR for each segment as of 6/1/2023.

Rate Total NSPL
HPS 41
MCI 87.1
RES 983.5
SCI 129.2

FAQs Disclaimer

The information provided in the Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”) section of the Site has been prepared by Duquesne and its advisors for the purposes of facilitating the Default Service auction process. The information presented and distributed here is subject to update, modification and/or amendment. The information is current as of the posting date. The material presented and distributed here is for informational purposes only and is made available with the understanding that any individual accessing it will use it for the sole purpose of participating in the aforementioned Default Service auction process. The information is not intended to form any part of the basis of any investment decision, valuation, or any bid that may be submitted during the Default Service auction process. This information should not be relied upon, and each recipient should make its own independent assessment of the subject opportunity after making all investigations it deems necessary.

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