Use of EDI for Meter Data in Other States

From: Jim Price, ORA

Discussion at the last PSWG/ MDMA committee meeting of ORA's proposal to
use the Utility Industry Group's (UIG) implementation of the ANSI X12
standard for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) included an interest in
information about data exchange practices in other states.  I also said
I would tell the group when the March 1998 revision of UIG's
implementation guideline for Transaction Set (TS) 867 (for meter usage
data) is available, and it is now on the Edison Electric Institute's Web
site at http://www.eei.org/misc/wrkgrp.htm.  (Although it is identified
as "final", it is still in the discussion stage leading to presentation
at a UIG meeting in June 1998, but final adoption will occur by mid
1998.)

The following note was circulated on an email distribution list for UIG
participants, and provides a succinct summary:  Massachusetts and New
Hampshire are using EDI for meter usage data, and Rhode Island is
switching from transfer of flat files to use of EDI.  (In Massachusetts,
Dept. of Telecommunications and Energy decision DPU/DTE 97-65 adopted
the use of EDI.)  Although California is leading other states by quite a
bit in the unbundling of revenue cycle services, New Hampshire is also
allowing competition in metering for large customers and is using EDI
for data transfer when a market participant is not directly reading the
meter.

Also available at http://www.eei.org/misc/wrkgrp.htm is the current
draft of Pennsylvania's Electronic Data Exchange Working Group's report
to its PUC.  Pennsylvania is supporting EDI for data transfer including
meter data.  As Chris King noted last time, New York, New Jersey, and
Arizona are planning or discussing the use of EDI for meter data.

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 30 Mar 98 10:17:54 EST
> From:HAAGEN@neesnet.com
> To: Utility Industry Group Internet Members List <uiglist@pge.com>
> Subject: Re[2]: 867 vs. 810 Deregulation
> 
>      
>      I haven't had much chance to comment on the flurry of messages
> over 
>      the past weeks, but this is an opportunity to give an update on 
>      what's going on in New England retail access and EDI.  We've been
> 
>      plenty busy defining, training and implementing this stuff in 
>      Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and we're in final stages in New 
>      Hampshire.  Our working groups have succeeded in standardizing
> the 
>      electronic business transactions to be used by all participants
> in 
>      Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and will be returning to Rhode 
>      Island later this year to see if we can retrofit standardization.
>      
>      Retail Access has started in Massachusetts.  The billing options
> are 
>      one combined bill prepared by the disco or separate bills, with
> the 
>      disco reading all meters.  The one or two bill option is the 
>      customer's choice, and we're using the 810 both to send billing 
>      information to suppliers for combined disco billing, and to send 
>      monthly usage data to suppliers when they are doing their own
> billing 
>      for generation.
>      
>      Retail access in NH begins NLT July 1, 1998.  The rules are 
>      essentially the same as in Massachusetts, except the choice of 
>      combined or separate billing is made by the supplier.  Discos are
> 
>      required to offer the combined billing option to all suppliers if
> they 
>      choose to use it.  We're trying to keep the business rules and 
>      transactions as much the same as possible in the New England
> states, 
>      so NH will also use the 810 for both monthly billing information
> and 
>      monthly usage data for separate supplier billing.  
>      
>      The other exception in NH is that "large" (>100kW demand)
> customers 
>      will be able to buy metering and metering services (which
> presumably 
>      will include meter reading) from competitive service providers.
> The 
>      choice will be the customer's, and the final rules have yet to be
> 
>      defined.  All customers in this class in NH have hourly recording
> 
>      meters with telemetering capability, and we're proposing that
> both 
>      disco and supplier have access to remotely interrogate (by phone)
> the 
>      meters for billing as well as ISO settlement data.  The rules and
> 
>      transactions have not yet been defined, but if usage data has to
> be 
>      transferred via EDI rather than collecting it directly, the 867
> is 
>      probably better suited for interval data.
>      
>      One year's customer usage history will be sent by the disco to
> the 
>      supplier in both NH and MA, and we're planning to use the 867 for
> this 
>      data. 
>      
>      In Rhode Island, retail access started last year using flat-file 
>      transfers for electronic transactions.  We'll be going back to
> the 
>      reglators later this year to recommend replacing this process
> with EDI 
>      and will once again be trying to keep the EDI transactions and
> rules 
>      the same as in MA and NH.
>      
>      We're not yet doing direct EDI billing of end-use customers in
> these 
>      markets.  
>      
>      To recap what we're doing/planning in New England:
>         Customer usage/billing advice (sent to supplier)  - - - TS 810
>         Payment advice to supplier (disco combined billing) - - TS 820
>         Customer historical usage history information - - - - - TS 867
>         Customer metering/usage/interval data - - - - - - - - - TS 867
>         Administrative transactions, responses, changes, etc. - TS 814
>         
>      
>      Ken Haagenson
>      New England Electric
>      haagen@neesnet.com
>      
> 
.