12-P:15 Suppliers of Natural Gas and Aggregators of Natural Gas Customers; Rulemaking. –
I. The department is authorized to adopt rules, pursuant to RSA 541-A, establishing requirements for suppliers of natural gas and the aggregators of natural gas customers, including registration of such suppliers and aggregators before soliciting or doing business in the state, registration fees, disclosure of information to customers, standards of conduct, submission to commission jurisdiction for mediation and resolution of disputes, imposition of penalties for failure to comply with commission requirements, and consumer protection and assistance requirements.
II. The department of energy shall adopt rules under RSA 541-A which require all natural gas companies to report to the department, the senate president, and the speaker of the house of representatives, in a uniform manner, lost and unaccounted for gas for each year.
(a) Such rules shall include a method using operational and billing data to determine the total amount of lost and unaccounted for gas and to identify and measure each of its components.
(b) The department may grant waivers from the rules as necessary for the development of innovative projects to reduce lost and unaccounted for gas. Such innovative projects shall be intended to reduce costs to ratepayers and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An application for a waiver shall include the goals of the innovative project, the expected cost, the expected benefit to ratepayers and the expected reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
(c) For the purposes of this paragraph, "lost and unaccounted for gas" shall mean an amount of gas that is the difference between the total gas purchased by a gas company and the sum of: (1) total gas delivered to customers; and (2) total gas used by a gas company in the conduct of its operations.
III. This section shall not in any way affect the utility or non-utility status of any supplier of natural gas or aggregator of natural gas customers, nor shall it be construed to limit the commission's and the department of energy's existing authority with regard to the regulation of gas utilities or the scope of the commission's and the department's authority in considering whether to expand the availability of competitive natural gas supplies through the distribution system of gas utilities.