The Deep State is looking out for the little guy. At least to the extent that big corporations will allow. The Energy Information Administration (EIA), which falls under the aegis of the Department of Energy, is requesting public comment on a new federal database to keep track of utility shut-offs.
Almost half of the states have no requirements on utility companies to report shut-off data at all. Then in those states, we can’t even ask whether those disconnections were for legitimate reasons (e.g., a fat cat just didn’t feel like paying the bill at a secondary residence) or illegitimate reasons (e.g., some poor guy got dyslexic and wrote a check for 81¢ fewer and from there got slammed with an avalanche of past due fines).
Even when there are reporting requirements, the provided data might not paint a full picture of the situation. Compare Michigan to Texas, for example. From the Energy Justice Lab’s Utility Disconnection Dashboard’s documentation:
Michigan instituted a reporting requirement in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2020) in response to Executive Order 2020-21. ... Under the Consumer Standards and Billing Practices for Electric and Natural Gas Service ..., the Commission requires investor- owned natural gas and electric utilities to file quarterly reports with monthly data on residential disconnection notices, shutoffs, and reconnections.
Prior to the Commission's response to the executive order; however, the data do not cover the number of currently disconnected customers and whether the households are occupied without electric or gas service. The Commission consequently ordered investor owned utilities to report these data and report: 1) efforts made to determine whether the residences are occupied; 2) The number of occupied residences that do not have service as a result of a shutoff due to nonpayment; 3) the number of occupied residences that do not have service as a result of a shutoff due to other reasons, e.g., misuse, or unsafe conditions; and 4) attempts the utility made to reconnect the service during the pandemic.
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The report from Michigan’s docket does not include number of customers; therefore, the EnJ [Energy Justice] Lab used the annual customer data from the EIA. Electric utility data is sourced from the EIA-861, with annual updates released in October of the following year. Gas utility data is drawn from the EIA-176 [natural gas survey from the EIA], with annual updates released in September of the following year. For the purpose of analysis, we are currently using the 2022 customer data as a proxy for the years 2023 and 2024 to estimate disconnection and reconnection rates. We will update these figures with the actual customer data once they are published to the EIA website.
Even with these disclosures, investor-owned utilities engage in a lot of unfair billing practices, requiring the broadening scope of disclosures the companies must make.
For example, back in December of last year, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) started requiring DTE Energy (NYSE:DTE) “to publicly disclose information about how often it sells struggling customers’ old debt to third-party collectors following revelations that it does so far more often than other utilities in the region,” Sarah Alvarez reported for Pro Publica.
That was the same month the MPSC authorized DTE to raise rates for customers. And then in March of this year, DTE asked the MPSC for yet another rate hike. Meanwhile, the state’s emergency relief fund has almost completely run out of money and won’t be replenished until the start of the heating season in October.
DTE stock’s last dividend payment was $1.02 per share. If that was just reduced by 2¢ and that money redirected to the state emergency relief fund, it would probably be enough to stop all shut-offs in DTE’s service area. I guarantee you that the institutional investors would not notice the difference, other fluctuations would probably loom larger.
DTE’s customer service is terrible. Just a couple of weeks ago, DTE did some presumably very necessary work on the gas lines in my neighborhood but gave no advance notice to the residents. The warlike noises were a complete surprise to me that morning. And when there’s a scheduled power outage, it’s my Internet service provider that lets me know, not DTE.
Things could be worse, I could live in Texas. According to the Energy Justice Lab,
Texas does not require utility disconnection reporting. The EnJ Lab used PowerSuite to search regulatory and legislative proceedings to identify any reported information about disconnections but did not find any relevant documents or reports. The EnJ Lab also communicated with local stakeholders to confirm the lack of available information.
The EnJ Lab obtained disconnection information from the Brownsville Public Utilities Board (2010- 2022), City of New Braunfels (2010-2022), and CPS Energy (2019-2022) through open records requests.
Just having all this information available in one place would be a big help in the fight for energy democracy.
Form EIA-112 would collect information on utility shut-offs nationally. From the Federal Register:
SUMMARY: EIA invites public comment on the proposed collection of information in the Residential Utility Disconnections Survey, ...
DATES: EIA must receive all comments on this proposed information collection no later than August 19, 2024. ...
ADDRESSES: Send comments to Marc Harnish by email to EIA112@eia.gov.
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Form EIA–112 is an annual form that will collect 12 months of data from electric and natural gas providers about final termination notices sent to residential customers due to bill nonpayment, service disconnections of residential customers due to bill nonpayment, and service reconnections of residential customers who were disconnected due to bill nonpayment.
No national data is currently collected on this information. Some states collect some of the data described above, but the data are inconsistent, and publication is not uniform. Form EIA– 112 aims to better inform state and federal policymakers on utility disconnections by providing reliable data that can help inform appropriate levels of budgetary support for various assistance programs across the United States. The results of the survey will be published on the EIA website at the aggregated national and state level, as well as at the utility level for respondents.
So please, when you get a chance, in between registering people to vote, explaining the manufactured panic over President Biden’s debate performance, fighting for various other causes, etc., send a comment in support of Form EIA-112.