Rate case docket numbers

Central Hudson Gas & Electric filed for a rate increase with the New York State Public Service Commission on August 1, 2024. The filing’s number was Case 24-E-0461. That number is the only thing you need to follow everything that happened to it, including the utility's original request, the parties who intervened, the joint proposal that came out of negotiations in December, the version of that proposal published for public comment the following May, and the commission's final order in August 2025, which cut the requested revenue increase by over half.

New York's format is two digits for the year, a letter for the service type, and a four-digit sequence. 24-E-0461 reads as 2024, Electric, case 461. The department's Document and Matter Management help pages spell out the full list of letters (E for electric, G for gas, W for water, and so on) along with the distinction between a "Case," which goes to a public Commission vote, and a "Matter," a numbered proceeding examined without one.

In California, an application gets a proceeding number like A.23-05-010, which decodes as an Application filed in May 2023, and the state's Docket Card system at apps.cpuc.ca.gov will pull up everything filed under it if you remove the punctuation, as A2305010.

If you know a utility is due for a rate case and want to find it, almost every state PUC site has some version of a name search that you can find a click or two past the homepage. It’s usually under a label like "Advanced Search" or "Docket Search," and most let you narrow by filing type and company.

New York's advanced search lets you filter by Matter Type and Subtype, and its own documentation gives "Major Rate" as the example subtype under a Petition filing, which is the filter you want if you're trying to isolate a general rate case from the dozens of smaller tariff amendments and interconnection petitions a large utility files in a given year.

Nevada's PUC has a how-to-find-a-docket guide, and it suggests to use your browser's find-in-page (control+F) function on the commission's all-dockets listing and search the phrase "rate case," which the guide notes will surface something like NV Energy's most recent filing.

Once you're in the docket, what you'll find is fairly consistent across states. For instance, South Carolina's Public Service Commission’s sequence is that a utility files, the commission sets a schedule and publishes notice, interested parties can move to intervene, public hearings are held, and the utility presents its case alongside any intervenors and commission staff.

In essence, a rate case docket isn't one document. Rather, it requires testimony, staff reports, settlement filings, and orders accumulating over months and sometimes years. Central Hudson's initial filing sought a 16 percent increase in electric delivery rates, but in the commission's final order, after the joint proposal was negotiated and revised, adopted a third of that for the first rate year. Some legislators pushed back on the practice (of treating the opening number as a starting position rather than a forecast) publicly during the hearings. Accessing this doesn’t require an account or subscription since state law generally requires that they’re open to the public.