Direct Energy Services, LLC v. Public Utilities Regulatory Authority

Citations

• 347 Conn. 101

Syllabus

The plaintiff electric suppliers appealed to the trial court from the final decision of the defendant, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), which imposed certain geographic and marketing restrictions on a renewable energy product known as a voluntary renewable offer (VRO). Electric suppliers serving Connecticut must demonstrate that a minimum percentage of the electricity that they supply is generated by specific types of renewable energy sources. To comply with these minimum standards, electric suppliers can purchase renewable energy credits (RECs), which represent renewable energy produced by third- party generators. PURA had previously established a program allowing customers to support the development of renewable energy sources beyond the minimum standards required. Pursuant to that program, electric suppliers began to offer their customers VROs, whereby the supplier would sell electric generation to the customer and promise to obtain more RECs than are needed to meet the minimum standards, thus allowing the supplier to market its product as more environmentally sound and to command higher prices. Thereafter, in 2020, PURA issued a final decision, establishing the geographic and marketing restrictions on VROs at issue in the present case. The geographic restriction prohib- ited VROs from containing RECs sourced outside of a particular, permit- ted control area, which was comprised of all or part of twenty states in and to the south and west of New England, as well as the District of Columbia. This restriction was based on PURA's finding that air quality in Connecticut is significantly and adversely affected by fossil fuel production to the southwest of the New England airshed and that displacing demand for fossil fuel plants in the permitted control area would provide environmental benefits to Connecticut, whereas displac- ing such demand outside of that area would not. The marketing restric- tion required electric suppliers to provide clear langua