In D.97-05-039, the Commission opened electric metering and billing services to competition. Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E), and Southern California Edison Company (Edison) were ordered in D.97-05-039 and D.97-05-040 to confer with interested parties in an attempt to develop standards for metering equipment and functions. Such standards are needed to ensure that customers continue to have reliable metering services regardless of who the metering service entity is. A pre-workshop meeting was held on May 28, 1997, in conjunction with a similar meeting for the Retail Settlements and Information Flow (RSIF) workshop. This pre-workshop meeting clarified the division of responsibilities for the meter and data communications workshop and the RSIF workshops. The parties submitted various proposals which were considered at the workshops.
The meter and data communications workshop was held on July 8, 1997. Pursuant to D.97-05-040, the Meter and Data Communications Standards Workshop Report (Meter and Data Workshop Report) was prepared and filed with the Commission on July 25, 1997. An opportunity was provided to parties to file comments to this report.
The Meter and Data Workshop Report contains a number of details and issues related to the offering of metering services. Some of the issues raised in the workshop report have already been addressed in the direct access tariff provisions attached to D.97-10-087, and will not be revisited in this decision. We also adopted some interim metering standards and criteria in D.97-10-087 as part of the direct access tariffs. We stated in D.97-10-087 that we would revisit some of these interim tariff provisions in this decision.
