Ohio Change Location

Participation Requirements

Participation Requirements

In order to participate in Duke Energy's Gas Firm Transportation (FT) Customer Choice Program, each supplier will be evaluated to ensure that they possess the necessary financial resources and capabilities to perform as a supplier. To assist Duke Energy in performing its evaluation, suppliers must do the following:

  • Provide proof of Commission Certification
  • Complete and sign Duke Energy's Registration & Credit Application
  • Submit creditworthiness information; a fee is assessed for each financial evaluation as set forth in Rate FRAS 
  • Complete and sign two copies of Duke Energy's Gas Aggregation/Customer Pooling Agreement
  • Pay a registration fee upon PUCO approval of Rate FRAS (Full Requirements Aggregation Service) 
  • Demonstrate a working understanding of the proper electronic communications capabilities necessary to transact business with Duke Energy.
  • Review Duke Energy's Rate FRAS, and attend a Duke Energy sponsored training for retail natural gas suppliers

NOTE:  The certified supplier is required to mark all correspondence, mailed to Duke Energy Ohio, as containing "Confidential Information".   This includes the Registration Packet documentation.

Suppliers not meeting the necessary credit level are required to provide additional security in a form and format specified by Duke Energy. Financial evaluation will be based on standard credit factors such as: financial and credit ratings; trade references; bank information; most recent annual report; 10K or 10Q; unused line of credit; pool customer payment history; and related financial information that has been independently audited, if available. Duke Energy determines creditworthiness based on the above criteria and will not deny a supplier's participation in the program without reasonable cause.

Electronic Communication Understanding

To enroll customers, suppliers use an electronic file transfer process (FTP). In order to demonstrate a working understanding of the proper electronic communications capabilities necessary to transact business with Duke Energy, suppliers need to follow the following steps:

  • Provide Duke Energy's Supplier Business Center with a PERMANENT IP ADDRESS
  • Duke Energy will verify the address and provide an ID and Password along with Duke Energy's IP ADDRESS
  • Duke Energy will e-mail a copy of the file layouts
  • Start an FTP session

Once connected you can "SEND" and "RECEIVE" files from your folder.

Duke Energy will provide two transactions daily for your review:

  • A setup file that is a confirmation file. To add customers to the Customer Choice Program you will send a 64 character semicolon delimited file called GFTCUST.DAT in your folder. We will process it and return a 364 character semicolon delimited file back in your folder called ***SETUP.DAT where *** is the day of the week processed. 
  • A file that is a bill file called ***BILL.DAT. This contains previous day's billing information which includes usage for your customers.  

Electronic Bulletin Board

Once a supplier is approved to participate in the Gas Customer Choice Program, Duke Energy will provide an ID & Password to access Duke Energy's Electronic Bulletin Board (EBB). The EBB application deals with a distinct set of business functions that allow suppliers to communicate with Duke Energy through the use of EBB via the Internet. Suppliers may use the EBB to perform the following:

  • Nominate gas deliveries and allocate that gas to customers, pools or other suppliers
  • View confirmed nomination/allocations at the city gate
  • View all eligible imbalance trade offers
  • Create an imbalance trade offer
  • Transact an imbalance trade
  • View daily IT pool imbalances
  • View pool membership
  • Receive online notification of operational flow orders
  • View/download customer usage data
  • View current and historical rate information
  • View various reports and notices

Further explanation of tariff functions may be found in Rate FRAS Full Requirements Aggregation Service, including the following:

  • Upstream Capacity Requirements
  • Annual Reconciliation
  • Operational Flow Orders
  • Scheduling