Democratic officials allow electricity costs to rise in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, by preventing firms from accessing smart meter data
In order for demand response to grow and reduce wholesale power costs, we would be better off ripping out smart meters and going back to once-a-month meter readings.
That’s the implication from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) recent decision in which FERC dismissed a complaint by CPower against PJM Interconnection. CPower alleged that PJM’s tariff is unduly discriminatory because it requires Curtailment Service Providers (“CSPs”) to provide interval usage data for all customers with advanced meters.
But utilities often deny CSPs access to this information. FERC’s three Democratic Commissioners – Willie Phillips, David Rosner and Judy Chang – were appointed by President Biden and voted to deny the complaint.
CPower sought to make demand response available to residential customers. If a customer has an advanced meter, the aggregator must provide the interval usage data for each home. But if there is no advanced meter on the home, then PJM rules permit aggregators to sample a small subset of customers with separate metering equipment and extrapolate the overall load reduction across a population of homes. This method of accounting is easier and less costly than prying the interval usage data for each individual household from the unwilling hands of utilities.
“FERC’s misguided decision has demand response aggregators wondering whether we can go back to the pre-smart meter era,” said Michael Murray, Mission:data’s president. “It makes no sense.”
FERC’s decision is the latest by Democratic officials at both the state and federal level over many years to hinder the ability of taxpayer-funded investments to reduce energy prices for consumers.
In 2008, U.S. Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, signed Act 129 into law, which required utilities to deploy new meters. And in 2009, the Recovery Act, passed by Democrats in Congress, allocated $3.0 billion to jump-start the installation of 17 million advanced meters across the country. PECO, an electric utility in Philadelphia, PA, received $200M in federal taxpayer funds to install 784,000 smart meters.
Fifteen years later, these taxpayer-funded smart meters are the ones that CPower and other advocates say are being crippled.
Within PJM’s footprint, over 70% of customers have a smart meter, per EIA statistics. But according to Mission:data’s Green Button Explorer, no distribution utility in PJM’s footprint today provides all of the information required by PJM in order for behind-the-meter resources to participate. Interval usage data is a key requirement of accurate load settlement, but PECO does not provide an electronic method for aggregators to receive this information. “As of now, data access is at best uncertain and very difficult to obtain, and at worst, it is unavailable,” said Ken Schisler, CPower’s senior vice president of law & policy, in a statement.
Recently, Democratic officials in Pennsylvania have taken further steps to prevent aggregators from accessing interval usage data. In 2021, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted to deny CPower a license to operate as an “electric generation supplier,” which would have given them access to interval usage data. The vote was 3-0. Commissioner Ralph V. Yanora was appointed by Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, and John F. Coleman, Jr. was re-appointed by Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.
Then in 2023, a coalition including Mission:data, Pennsylvania’s Green Building Alliance and the Keystone Energy Efficiency Alliance asked the Public Utilities Commission to provide an avenue for energy efficiency firms to access customer energy usage data. The request cited $130M in federal funds from the Inflation Reduction Act that requires energy usage data in order to pay rebates for residential energy efficiency retrofits:
Home contractors and Department of Environmental Protection (DEQ) will need permission-based access to customer electricity and natural gas usage data, both historically and for at least one year into the future in order to validate energy savings and pay out rebates…Pennsylvania cannot afford to wait any longer….Thousands or tens of thousands of requests [for energy data] from homeowners will need to be processed in the coming years…
Last month, the PUC denied the request, voting 5-0. All five members were appointed by Democratic governors.
For its part, the U.S. Department of Energy under President Biden declines to impose data portability requirements as part of its grants. Despite having $3.0 billion in funding and initially requiring “data standards (e.g., Green Button Connect), interoperability, and nondiscriminatory data access on a real-time basis,” DOE then backtracked, saying its “requirements” were merely encouragements.
Meanwhile, DOE recently announced another $100M award to PECO, with no data portability strings attached.
The disappointing track record of Democratic officials comes at a time when demand response is more important than ever in decreasing wholesale power costs. PJM recently closed a record-breaking capacity auction for the 2025-26 year with prices up over 600%; estimates are that some electric bills will increase by $16-$18 per month.
“If Democrats want to be credible on both clean energy and fighting inflation, they need to acknowledge their failures to put consumers in charge of their own information,” said Michael Murray.