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CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
505 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA  94102-3298


Contact: Kyle DeVine 213-897-4225      October 25, 1996


    At the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) meeting
today in Sacramento, the Commission issued a decision on the
unbundling and rate-setting phase of its electric restructuring
proceeding (R94-04-031, agenda item H-20a).  Following are the
remarks of the assigned Commissioner, Henry M. Duque:

    On April 29, PG&E, Edison and SDG&E filed a request for
Declaratory Order with FERC.  They requested approval of their
functional separation of transmission and distribution.  We expect
FERC will rule on this request soon.  If FERC approves the
utilities' request, then in this Decision we direct PG&E, Edison and
SDG&E to provide by November 15 a cost separation of transmission
from distribution for both ratebase and base rate revenue
requirement.
    In this Decision, we also ask the utilities and other parties to
comment on some prototype strategies for providing hourly metering
under Direct Access.  These strategies focus on the alternatives of
adding or replacing meters and of installing meters individually or
system-wide.
    We present our objective for metering and billing which is not
impeding the prompt availability of direct access for all customers.
    We then raise several issues which we ask the parties to discuss
in the context of the strategies.  These issues include meter
ownership, data access and meter installation, the potential for
competition in metering and billing, estimates of meter and billing
cost and the impact of standarization of communication for meters.
    We ask parties to comment on the proper cost measure for meters
and billing.  We note incremental cost, not embedded cost, should
characterize the metering and billing market if they are
competitive.
    We also ask parties to comment on the impact of standardization
of communication across meters.  We note that when meters develop
standardized communication protocols, different manufacturers can
compete within one network and customer load can respond to system
conditions including the real time price.
    I ask for your support for this item.      -###-