Consumer Right To Know Electric Utility Charges

The bill requires an investor-owned electric utility to file with the public utilities commission (commission) for the commission's review a comprehensive billing format that the investor-owned electric utility has developed for its monthly billing of customers. An investor-owned electric utility shall file the comprehensive billing format pursuant to a schedule determined by the commission. The comprehensive billing format must include the following:

• A line-item representation of all monthly charges and credits applied to the customer and an indication whether the charges have increased from the prior month as a result of increased fuel costs;
• For months in which tiered rates are applied, a breakdown of the tiered rates and the amount of usage to which each rate was applied for the month;
• The rate and usage for the current month and each of the previous 12 months, as shown in a bar graph or other visual format; and
• For customers to which demand rates apply, a listing of the demand charge, aggregated data about the demand during the billing period, and, if the customer is a residential customer, a calculation of the amount that the customer would have been billed had standard residential rates applied.

The bill also requires each investor-owned utility to provide its customers, on a biannual basis, with an insert that indicates, as a percentage, each fuel source used in power generation and purchased for the utility.

The bill sets forth procedures for the commission's review of a filed comprehensive billing format and provides that once a comprehensive billing format has been approved by the commission, the investor-owned utility need not refile it unless changes have been made to it.

(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)