A switch hold is a market flag that prevents a customer from switching away from a reseller when they still owe them money. The design is to help protect the resellers in the ERCOT market. These can be put into play on residential services when a payment plan is setup on a service or if the end customer tampers with their meter to try to prevent usage from counting properly. There are two types of switch holds. The first type is created by the reseller is called a DPP switch hold in our system and is available once a payment plan is created in the system. Once a payment plan is setup, the reseller has the option of enabling/creating a switch hold. The other type is called a Tampering Switch Hold and is created by the utilities when meter tampering has been identified
When the reseller sets up a switch hold, a 650-01 (with a purpose code of SH001) is sent to the market to notify the market that a switch hold has been requested for the ESI ID/Sitecode requested. The market then sends a 650-02 response notifying the reseller whether or not the switch hold will be put into place. The switch hold is removed when the payment plan agreement is fulfilled and another 650-01 (with purpose code SH002) is sent to the market to request a lift of the switch hold in the market.
When the utility finds out about meter tampering at a location, they will immediately enact a Tampering Switch Hold in the market. The utility will send a miscellaneous charge invoice (810) to the reseller and ERCOT will also be notified and an 814-20 meter update transaction will also be sent to the reseller. The tampering charge is very large and will remain in effect until the reseller requests the tampering switch hold be lifted by sending a 650-01 (with a purpose code of SH003) to the market to request the hold be lifted.
While the switch hold is in effect, the customer is unable to switch away their electric services from the reseller that setup the switch hold for the customer initially. This is how the market is able to help our clients (the resellers) and also allows them to present their customers with a way to pay off large electric sums over time.
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