We need more transparency and accountability for our state energy decisions at the Public Service Commission. When we need to be looking forward, the system in place with our current Commissioners holds us back. Our energy future hangs in the balance. Watch an interview based on years of watching the current system at work.

Our Alabama Public Service Commission has allowed Alabama Power to charge us the highest connection fee in the country if we want to generate some of our own electricity but be connected to the grid for backup. Why should Alabama be the only state where our energy future continues to be decided behind closed doors? This important issue is discussed in public everywhere else.

The Southern Environmental Law Center has filed a complaint with the PSC on behalf of Gasp and some of its members about the inappropriateness of the tariff stealthily imposed in 2013 on self-generated electricity with grid backup. APC responded with a request to dismiss their complaint and to raise the fee.

Ask for the simple opportunity for a public hearing about the charges on self-generated electricity. And let others know to ask our elected commissioners to open the closed doors so we can hear this discussed in public, even if we’re not allowed to speak! The PSC received all the formal documents it requested by August 20th, 2019 but still hasn’t ruled – so don’t wait.

• How to contact the PSC directly – Calls are counted: 334-242-5218.
• President:Twinkle Cavanaugh – twinkle.cavanaugh@psc.alabama.gov
• Place 1: Jeremy Oden – Jeremy.Oden@psc.alabama.gov
• Place 2: Chip Beeker – chip.beeker@psc.alabama.gov
• Our designated advocate – Assistant Atty. General Olivia Martin – OMartin@ago.state.al.us
• PSC Exec. Dir. & Chief Admin. Law Judge: Judge John Garner- Karen.Rogers@psc.alabama.gov
• Secretary: Walter Thomas – Walter.Thomas@psc.alabama.gov
• Energy Policy Director: John Free – John.Free@psc.alabama.gov

Tuesday, May 1, 2018 the Alabama Public Service Commission (PSC) will decide how much you and I and the rest of Alabama Power Company (APCo) customers will get as a rate decrease.

You probably remember that Congressional action slashed taxes for corporations, including APCo.  The head of Southern Company (SO), their parent, said these federal tax breaks to the utilities should give customers a 5-7% rate decrease (1). However, its subsidiary, Alabama Power, says our tax rate decrease will be 9% (2), but there are some other adjustments that it wants to make to protect its creditworthiness. For one thing, it’s concerned that tax payments collected from customers will be lower, so it will get a haircut on the cash flow generated by our monthly payments toward it’s taxes. The company uses these collected payments as “float” to partly fund operations between the time of collection and its deferred tax payments. Also, it wants to protect its creditworthiness by various adjustments and pay itself back for under collected fuel costs, which we owe, but can’t see since the usual report disappeared.

These major changes – which were deemed a “material change”, worthy of reporting to investors through an 8-k filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission – would benefit from some transparent public sharing process well before a few days prior to the scheduled vote.

But late notification is what has happened and continues to happen. Although the utility and the PSC staff have been working on this for months, they only let its customers know about it two weeks before the scheduled vote.  You have to know the secret sauce to even search out their plans – buried in the PSC filing system under “How do I”/”Search Proceedings”/”Search for Document” … and more. (End of this search chain has links which are provided in case you’re interested (3)).  The PSC meeting agenda, also searchable on the PSC site, is usually only posted on Friday before Commissioners’ Tuesday vote (2). Unlike for sister Southern Company Georgia Power, there is no provision for public working meetings of the Alabama PSC to discuss upcoming electric utility requests before the final vote.

Possibly, the final calculations agreed to through these complex deliberations could all work to our benefit, but most other utilities are watched by internal or external groups dedicated to looking out for customers’ interests. In Alabama, our protection is legally mandated through Assistant Attorney Generals assigned to the PSC to protect our interests. Unfortunately, they act only if the elected Attorney General determines that is in the “public interest”. And there’s not much evidence when or if these capable attorneys are actively involved in our consumer protection. After all, how does anyone but the AG assistants know what the AG defines as “public interest” in this context?

So, I asked for a public hearing now and for changing the process going forward to have a timely hearing whenever the PSC considers a change that requires investor notification (4). I scrambled through unfamiliar procedures to file a proper request in the relatively short time between Tuesday April 17 and Friday, April 27.

If we had had a public hearing process in place back in January 2013, maybe we would have more solar panels and jobs in Alabama. At least there’s a group at work to roll back the damage done to the solar industry and its customers in Alabama by that power company request and hasty PSC decision over 5 years ago (5). It’s not too late for positive change.

Let’s get engaged and tell all the folks running for the PSC in November that we want them to come out from behind the closed doors and make their decisions more transparently. And for candidates for Attorney General, find out how they plan to set their Assistant AG’s to work at the PSC on our behalf – and in our interest.

It’s way past time to open the doors on this major decision process and to improve the extremely “closed” way our electric utility is regulated in Alabama. But it’s not too late to act now.

1. https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2018/02/21/southern-co-ceo-tax-reform-should-lead-to-5-7.html
2. https://www.pscpublicaccess.alabama.gov/pscpublicaccess/PSC/CommissionMeetingDetailsPage.aspx?meetingId=c2bea035-f5bd-4c26-98df-761e5dbfe3f0
3. https://www.pscpublicaccess.alabama.gov/pscpublicaccess/ViewFile.aspx?Id=8c1bd303-5f4f-40c7-af05-66e2fb0a8366 and https://www.pscpublicaccess.alabama.gov/pscpublicaccess/ViewFile.aspx?Id=26402922-9876-44a8-9de1-c88dadedce37]
4. https://ourenergyfreedom.wordpress.com and PSC-Hearing Request-re APC 4-17-18 filings
5. http://www.al.com/news/ssf/2018/04/alabama_power_solar_complaint.html

By Brian Lyman. Reprinted from Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 13, 2016

Alabama Power customers will see their bills go up next month, for increases that the company says will go toward updates and upgrades of existing infrastructure.

Representatives of the utility said at a hearing Tuesday the average residential customer using 1000 kilowatt hours of electricity a month would see their bill go up by $6.31 a month, effective Jan. 1.

(more…)

This Energy Cost Recovery Report had been printed in the PSC agenda regularly until July 2015. It showed the budgeted amounts for each month, updated to actual figures when data became available after a two-month lag.

Customers now have no accessible information about the cumulative amount of funds owed to them or to the company since only the monthly over or under collection is provided in the PSC agenda. 

Alabama Power did not request that the report disappear. Now that the ECR report has been missing for 15 months, surely whatever hidden purposes its removal served have been accomplished.  The over collected amount is slowly decreasing, as required, from $237.7 million in December 2015 and is $111.5 million as of October 2016..

Time for the PSC to let customers in on the full story behind the millions that the utility owes them – or that they might one day owe the company.  Hiding the accustomed report has been an affront to transparency and accountability. The PSC has the power to easily remedy rather than compound the problem by quickly restoring the report and allowing customers to easily see the balance in the Alabama Power ECR account.