Greg L from Indianapolis, IN. IPL delivery territory. A small town in central Indiana voted to join a municipal aggregation program for electricity supply. The town negotiated a group rate with a REP and all eligible commercial accounts were supposed to be automatically enrolled. The problem: about half the commercial accounts in town were already on individual competitive supply contracts with different REPs. When the municipal aggregation kicked in, those accounts got enrolled with the new aggregation REP WITHOUT being properly unenrolled from their existing REP. Result: approximately 30 businesses got double-billed for supply — one bill from their original REP and one from the aggregation REP. Total double billing across 30 businesses for the first month: approximately $47,000.
Town opted into municipal aggregation — half the businesses got double-billed
Greg, municipal aggregation enrollment errors are a known risk. The aggregation program is supposed to identify accounts with existing competitive supply contracts and exclude them or at least notify them before switching. Sounds like the opt-out process failed completely. Who is responsible for fixing this — the town, the aggregation REP, or the utility?
Randy, that is the debate. IPL says they processed the enrollment data they received from the aggregation REP. The aggregation REP says they sent the enrollment for all eligible accounts and the town was supposed to provide the exclusion list. The town says they did not know some businesses had existing contracts. Meanwhile 30 businesses are getting two supply bills.
Greg, the utility should have a process to prevent dual enrollment. In PJM and MISO territories, the market rules prohibit a customer from having two active supply contracts simultaneously. When the aggregation REP submitted the enrollment, the utility system should have flagged the accounts that already had an active supplier and rejected those enrollments. If IPL processed dual enrollments, that is a utility system failure.
Eugene, that is a strong argument. I looked at the MISO enrollment rules and you are right — the utility is supposed to reject enrollment requests for accounts that already have an active competitive supplier. IPL should have caught this. I am going to file a complaint with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.
Filed with the IURC. Also contacted all 30 affected businesses and offered to help them get the duplicate charges reversed. Most of them had already paid both bills because they did not realize they were being double-charged. The supply line on a deregulated bill is confusing enough with one supplier — add a second and most business owners have no idea what they are looking at.
IURC ruled that IPL was responsible for preventing dual enrollments and ordered them to facilitate the reversal of all duplicate supply charges. IPL coordinated with both REPs to identify the overlap periods and process refunds. Total refunds across 30 businesses: $47,000 for the first month plus $38,000 for partial second-month charges before the error was caught. My fee was modest on each individual account but the total across 30 clients was solid. And I now have 30 new commercial clients in that town who trust me.
$85,000 in total refunds across 30 businesses from a municipal aggregation enrollment error. And 30 new client relationships. Greg, sometimes the biggest opportunities come from systemic problems, not individual account errors. One phone call to the IURC fixed the issue for everyone. Smart work.