“Puget Sound Energy will know in two weeks whether a multi-million dollar investment in new metering equipment will pay off for the company – and possibly for consumers – in terms of energy savings.Executives from the electric utility went before the state’s Utilities and Transportation Commission last Wednesday to pitch a new rate plan that would charge its customers more for electricity used during peak times than during off-peak times.Last year, PSE installed electronic meter reading devices at the homes and businesses of 420,000 of its customers. The devices record electricity usage in 15-minute intervals, which allows the company to generate bills that charge customers different rates during four periods of the day. PSE asked that the WUTC allow the utility to begin the new billing procedure as of last Sunday, a move company executives believe will encourage its customers to use less electricity during peak periods. That would in turn allow the company to buy less power on the open market to meet increasing customer demands. The price for that power has increased 100-fold in some places on the West Coast during the past few months.However, PSE’s timeline proved to be too fast for WUTC commissioners Marilyn Showalter, William Gillis and Richard Hemstad. The trio voted to delay any decision on the new rate structure until April 25 to allow more time to evaluate the financial impact of the rates on consumers.PSE spokesperson Dorothy Braken said the decision was a clear message to her company to slow down and back off.They were very clear, Braken said Thursday.At least one factor that played in the commissioners’ decision is the fact that PSE has not yet finalized its time of day rate schedule. WUTC chair Marilyn Showalter told the executives at last week’s meeting that PSE customers are confused by conflicting rate schedules released by the company during the past few weeks. Responding to criticism by commercial and industrial customers who commented at the meeting, Showalter also told the PSE representatives that the new rate schedule probably should not be applied to business customers, most of whom she believes cannot shift their electricity use. Time-of-day rate schedules for PSE’s commercial and industrial customers – which consume 54 percent of the power generated or purchased by PSE – have not been set.Marilyn Meehan, a spokeswoman for the WUTC, said that overall the three WUTC commissioners are very interested in PSE’s proposal. However, the commissioners also agree that the proposed rate schedule needs to be changed to benefit consumers more and PSE less.If approved by the WUTC, PSE’s time-of-day pricing would be the first such rate plan in the United States. The company claims that the rate schedule is revenue neutral and will not bring PSE higher profits on its electricity sales. Bracken said PSE executives hope approval is forthcoming because the company is getting close to the point at which it will need to buy power on the open market to serve customer needs.We are disappointed that the commissioners did not take immediate action yesterday, Bracken said, reading from a prepared company statement.If the company is forced to buy power on the open market, it will likely be on behalf of commercial and industrial customers, whose demand for more power far outpaces that of the residential market. Bracken said the largest growth in demand could come from Internet data centers, businesses that warehouse and power the thousands of computers that run the Internet. She said the company has received about a dozen requests for power from these companies during the past year, requests totaling about 700 megawatts per day of electricity. PSE currently supplies about 2,700 megawatts to all of its customers daily, which means the new requests would require PSE to up its electricity supply by a little more than 25 percent.The WUTC commissioners will decide to approve, reject, or alter PSE’s rate schedule at their April 25 meeting. The commissioners can also vote to suspend action on the issue until a later date. “