Pennsylvania Borough Seeks Retail Supplier License
December 4, 2013
The Borough of Columbia has applied for a Pennsylvania electric generation supplier (EGS) license as a supplier of electricity.
If its application is granted, Columbia would become the 36th Pennsylvania borough to be part of the electricity business in Pennsylvania. The other 35 boroughs buy power at a wholesale rate from an outside generator/distributor and then provide power at a retail rate to the residential, commercial, and industrial customers within their municipal boundaries using a municipally-owned distribution system.
Importantly, Columbia intends to use a different business model than the other boroughs. Columbia will be leasing the electric plant at the Susquehanna Regional Management Complex (SRMC), formerly known as the Harrisburg Incinerator, from Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (Authority), and will use that plant to generate electricity – which Columbia intends to sell to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of General Services (DGS) under a long-term contract.
The Authority, acting on its own, could only sell electricity on the wholesale market. 53 Pa. C.S. § 5607(a)(12). With Columbia acting as a “conduit,” the electricity generated at the SRMC can be sold to end-users, such as DGS. Columbia is expected to earn about $50,000 a year.
Because Columbia will be selling electricity outside of its municipal boundaries, it is seeking an EGS license from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC). Sales within municipal boundaries do not require an EGS license, or the approval of the PUC. Notably, Columbia does not own a distribution system. If it did, it would be required to “open” its distribution system to competition from other suppliers. See 66 Pa. C.S. § 2805(2).
Columbia’s application was filed at PUC Docket No. A-2013-2388477. Additional documents related to the Borough’s sale of electricity to DGS can be found at:
https://www.lcswma.org/srmc/lcswma_srmc_regionalization.html
1. https://www.pmea.us/
2. 66 Pa. C.S. § 2809(a) (“No person or corporation, including municipal corporations which choose to provide service outside their municipal limits except to the extent provided prior to the effective date of this chapter, brokers and marketers, aggregators and other entities, shall engage in the business of an electric generation supplier in this Commonwealth unless the person or corporation holds a license issued by the commission.”).