Mission:data, Voltus to FERC: PJM’s smart meter data requirement is unjust and discriminatory
Utilities fail to use over $5 billion in metering infrastructure for putting downward pressure on electricity prices
October 8th, 2025 — Today, Mission:data and virtual power plant (VPP) leader Voltus, Inc. filed a complaint against PJM at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), alleging that PJM’s Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT) violates the Federal Power Act because it obligates market participants to provide smart meter data, but utilities do not make such data available.
Despite having some 10 million smart meters, the electric utilities named in the complaint are unwilling or unable to provide customer power usage data to aggregators such as Voltus, known as Curtailment Service Providers (CSPs). For each of eight major utilities in the PJM region, the complaint documents its attempts at accessing smart meter data. The process is described as “byzantine,” outright unavailable, or so onerous that enrolling thousands of homes in a virtual power plant would be impossible. These allegations are consistent with Mission:data’s Green Button Explorer, which found that not a single utility in PJM’s footprint provides the customer data necessary for behind-the-meter resources to deliver energy and capacity at lower prices.
Today’s filing is the second attempt ever to bring data access barriers to FERC’s attention. In 2023, CPower filed a complaint against PJM regarding similar topics. That complaint was denied without prejudice in September 2024 for lack of evidence. Today’s filing seeks to overcome the evidentiary hurdle by meticulously documenting widespread practices of data blocking. For example, the complaint states:
PECO and PEPCO will not provide interval usage data, peak load contribution values, or capacity and energy loss factor values to CSPs, even when the customer has expressly consented.
Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) limits CSP data requests to 10 accounts at a time, and does not provide name, address, account number, or other information necessary to tie a particular customer to usage data.
AEP Ohio and Appalachian Power only provide 12 months of interval data for individual customers over email, charge $50 per request and require a 2-4 week turnaround.
$5.7 billion in smart meter investments bought customers “death by a thousand PDFs”
A subsequent analysis by Mission:data shows that consumers of the eight utilities mentioned paid $5.7 billion for smart meters, the modern infrastructure that allows electricity to be tracked at 15-minute, 30-minute or 60-minute intervals. At the time of approval, utilities and regulators hailed smart meters as the answer to energy affordability because they would allow a diverse array of market participants – including home appliances – access to energy usage information, helping shifting load to low-cost times.
However, today’s complaint demonstrates that the cost-saving benefits to consumers have remained elusive. PPL and Duquesne Light, for instance, provide a manual process for CSPs to email data requests with the consent of customers, with one request per customer. This is known as “death by a thousand PDFs.”
For the eight utilities mentioned in the complaint, ratepayers in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio and Washington, D.C. paid approximately $5.1 billion for advanced meters. In addition, federal taxpayers contributed $417 million from the 2009 Recovery Act and $169 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, for a total of $5.7 billion. These funds went to purchase smart meters and related communications infrastructure and computer systems.
“Today’s complaint should be a wake-up call to state regulators that they cannot wait any longer to mandate data portability,” said Michael Murray, Mission:data’s President. “By depriving virtual power plants of the data needed to operate, utilities undermine competition and contribute to today’s affordability crisis.”