DIRECT ACCESS WORKING GROUP
                 MARKET RULES COMMITTEE B
               PROPOSED POSITION STATEMENTS

Note:  These draft position statements are preliminary and for discussion
purposes.

ISSUE  -  Who is responsible for the metering costs for Aggregation?

POSITION  -  The participating customers are responsible for the cost of the
metering for aggregation.  The customers could arrange to have a third party,
such as a retailer, own the metering equipment and lease it to the customers.
The UDC could be one of the third parties that owns the metering equipment.

Aggregation means that the customers loads are combined for the purpose of
contracting with a direct access supplier.

Metering is used in a broad sense for purposes of this discussion, and includes
the meter and any infrastructure (i.e., meter reading, communications, billing,
data processing) that may be required to implement direct access for the
aggregated customers.

All metering equipment will be required to comply with metering and
communication standards, which are to be developed.

Metering requirements and costs may differ for an aggregation of customers,
compared to individual customers participating in direct access.  For example,
if an aggregation consists of all customers served from a single point on a
distribution circuit (contiguous aggregation), then one hourly metering
installation at the single point may be sufficient for the purposes of metering
the energy purchases.  The customers downstream of the hourly meter may not
need hourly metering, and could probably continue with standard metering for
the distribution delivery (non-commodity) charges.  In the above  example, if
10 customers participated in a contiguous aggregation, only one hourly metering
installation may be required instead of the ten which would be required if each
customer participated in direct access individually. If non-contiguous, hourly
meters would be required for each customer.

PROS-  The entities that stand to benefit from the metering are responsible
for the cost of the metering.

CONS  -  The cost of the single hourly metering point may be high if it is
located on the main part of a distribution circuit, especially if it is on the
primary voltage part of the circuit.  Siting of the metering installation could
also be a challenge.


Drafted by George Samaniego/SDG&E 6/18/96

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George M. Samaniego - Distribution Management & Strategies
Principal Engineer, X8266, PINS SAMANIEG, Mail CP5203A

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