Does anyone know if Florida has a rule about how quickly utilities must respond to a third-party authorization? I submitted LOAs to FPL, Duke Energy Florida, and TECO three weeks ago. FPL processed it in 5 days. Duke took 12 days. TECO still hasn't responded. My client is getting impatient and I'm wondering if there's a regulatory requirement I can cite to push TECO along.
Florida utilities and the 10-day LOA processing rule
I don't believe Florida has a specific statutory timeframe for processing third-party authorizations the way some states do. But the Florida PSC does have general customer service standards that utilities are supposed to meet. Your best bet with TECO is to call their commercial accounts department directly rather than waiting for the general customer service process. Ask for a supervisor if the front-line rep can't help. I've found that a polite but firm phone call moves things faster than any regulatory citation.
TECO has always been slow for me too. I'm in Tampa and even local accounts take 2-3 weeks for them to process an LOA. Their commercial billing department is understaffed from what I can tell. One thing that helped — I started submitting LOAs by walking them into the TECO business office on Gandy Boulevard in person. Same-day acknowledgment and usually have data within a week after that.