Public comment and a hearing before Administrative Law Judge Linda Foreman is set for Wednesday morning in Room 301 at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission for Summit Utilities Oklahoma, Inc. Originally scheduled for July 28, this regular meeting was continued until August 3, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. The company is seeking approval of its performance-based rate change plan calculations for the 12 months ending December 31, 2021 (Cause No. PUD2022-000022).
Summit filed its Application on March 15, 2022 seeking an order approving the calculations resulting in no change to rates or revenues according to its performance-based rate change plan for the calendar year ended December 31, 2021. It is also seeking approval of proposed base rate adjustments due to the company’s energy efficiency true-up adjustment and its incentive as well as a 13-year amortization of unprotected excess deferred income tax resulting from the cost of removal being reclassified by Summit Utilities Oklahoma as a result of an IRS private letter ruling.
CenterPoint Energy Resources Corp., the predecessor owner of Summit’s Oklahoma utility assets, was operating under a similar plan approved in 2004. Summit maintains that it poured nearly $7.7 million into significant investments in its Oklahoma distribution system to replace an aging infrastructure in 2021 as the pandemic waned. The IRS letter ruling required the company to reclassify more than $3.3 million from the net protected liability class to an unprotected asset. The company had been issuing a one-time credit every April. With the new treatment of the asset, Summit now proposes no similar credits until the unprotected asset is fully amortized over a period of 13 years.
To read the Application, click here.
