Illinois Administrative Code › Title 83 - PUBLIC UTILITIES › Part 501 - STANDARDS OF SERVICE FOR GAS UTILITIES AND ALTERNATIVE GAS SUPPLIERS › Subpart A - GENERAL › Section 501.10 - Definitions and Incorporations by Reference

Current through Register Vol. 48, No. 28, July 12, 2024
a)
				Definitions
"Act" means the Public Utilities Act [ 220 ILCS 5 ].
"AGA" means the American Gas Association.
"Alternative Gas Supplier" has the same meaning as in Section
				  19-105 of the Act.
"ANSI" means the American National Standards Institute.
"Answer Time" means a measurement from the point the customer
				  dialed the last digit of the natural gas public utility's or alternative gas
				  supplier's telephone number and a natural gas public utility or alternative gas
				  supplier representative or automated system is ready to render assistance or accept
				  information to process calls.
"Auxiliary Equipment" means an integral device attached directly
				  or remotely to a gas meter. The function of auxiliary equipment is to adjust gas
				  meter usage measurements to account for changes in gas temperature or
				  pressure.
"Bell Prover" means a cylindrical metal tank open at the top and
				  nearly filled with liquid, in which a smaller calibrated cylindrical tank called the
				  bell, open at the bottom and having a dome-shaped top, can be raised or lowered. As
				  the operator raises (negative pressure) or lowers (positive pressure) the bell, the
				  bell will displace a known volume of air.
"British Thermal Unit" or "BTU" means the quantity of heat
				  required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit from
				  58.5 °F to 59.5 °F under a standard pressure of 30 inches of mercury at
				  32°F, or 1054.804 Joules.
"Complaint" means an objection made to a natural gas public
				  utility or alternative gas supplier, by a customer or another entity, as to its
				  charges, facilities or service. Complaints include a customer or other entity
				  identifying and asking a natural gas public utility or alternative gas supplier to
				  address or resolve a problem or concern and shall not include contacts that are
				  limited to inquiry or seeking information.
"Compressibility" means a gas volume correction factor calculated
				  by using the parameters of natural gas composition, flowing gas temperature, and
				  flowing gas pressure. The compressibility correction factor compensates for the
				  deviation of gases from the ideal gas laws with increased pressure and with
				  variations in temperature and gas composition. Compressibility is not to be confused
				  with "supercompressibility", which is also defined in this Section.
"Coriolis Meter" means a gas meter that infers mass flow rate by
				  measuring tube displacement resulting from the Coriolis effect.
"Corrector" means a device that corrects uncorrected gas meter
				  volume according to the gas laws (Boyle's Law, Charles' Law, and Real Gas
				  Law).
"Commission" means the Illinois Commerce Commission.
"Commission Referee Test" means the accuracy test of any gas meter
				  made in the presence of one or more members of Commission Staff.
"Cubic Foot" means the unit of volume for purposes of measurement
				  at a base temperature of 60°F at a base pressure of 14.73 pounds per square inch
				  absolute.
"Custody Transfer Meter" means the meter, auxiliary equipment and
				  tertiary equipment a utility uses to measure a customer's gas usage.
"Diaphragm Meter" means a positive displacement, bellows-type gas
				  meter that alternately fills and empties compartments of known volume and totals the
				  number of times the cycle occurs to determine the volume of gas passing through the
				  meter.
"Defective Meter" means a meter whose condition is impairing
				  service to a customer or a meter that has failed the requirements of Sections
				  501.170,
				  501.180,
				  501.190,
				  501.200,
				  501.210,
				  501.220 or
				  501.230.
"Flow Computer" means a device that electronically converts
				  signals from a gas measurement system to a useful form such as flow rate.
"Fixed Factor" means the use of a gas pressure regulator to
				  control gas pressure within an allowable pressure band over the required flow rate
				  range considering the variation of inlet pressures and results in the application of
				  a pressure correction factor applied via an arithmetic application or special index
				  to a customer's measured usage.
"Master Bell" means a primary bell prover used as a reference
				  standard for target proof correlations and bell prover interface
				  recertification.
"Measurement Error" means an error in the calculation of a
				  customer's gas usage due to the inaccuracy or improper setup of a utility's meter or
				  other equipment whose function directly or indirectly affects the utility's
				  measurement of a customer's gas usage.
"Meter Accuracy" means the overall performance of a particular
				  meter in relationship to a known reference or portable standard.
"Meter Soaking Room" means a room maintained at the same
				  atmospheric conditions as the meter proving room. The purpose of a meter soaking
				  room is to store and acclimatize meters prior to testing to ensure meter testing
				  accuracy that is not affected by temperature variations.
"Multi-path Ultrasonic Meter" means a device that derives gas flow
				  rate by measuring the transit times of high-frequency sound pulses. Sound pulses
				  transit between pairs of transducers located on or in the gas pipe.
"Natural Gas Supplier" means an alternative gas supplier or any
				  other natural gas supplier providing the natural gas commodity to a customer under a
				  gas utility tariff or rider.
"Orifice Meter" means an inferential meter that consists of an
				  orifice plate perpendicular to the gas flow in a pipe. When gas flows across the
				  orifice, it creates a pressure differential. Transmitters and transducers measure
				  the pressure differential, static pressure, and other variables to determine the
				  flow rate. The flow rate is proportional to the square root of the differential
				  pressure across the orifice plate.
"Portable Standards" means instruments that utilities use in the
				  field or the meter shop to test the accuracy of auxiliary and tertiary equipment,
				  transmitters, and other equipment associated with correcting a meter's
				  output.
"Proving Room" means a temperature-controlled room where the
				  utility uses equipment to determine the accuracy of meters.
"Rated Capacity" or "Badged Capacity" means the hourly gas
				  throughput of a meter as defined by the meter manufacturer.
"Reference Standards" means instruments that utilities use only
				  for verifying the accuracy of portable standards, and whose accuracy is traceable
				  back to the national standard maintained by the National Institute of Standards and
				  Technology (NIST) or its successor.
"Rotary Meter" means a positive displacement meter that
				  alternately fills and empties rotating compartments of known size and totals the
				  number of times the cycle occurs to determine the volume of gas passing through the
				  meter.
"Service Applicant" means a person who applies for residential or
				  non-residential utility service for a location where the utility has not yet
				  installed the meter.
"Small Commercial Customer" has the same meaning as in Section
				  19-105 of the Act.
"Sonic Nozzle Automatic Prover" means a device containing a
				  parallel bank of sonic flow nozzles that it uses to determine actual gas volume
				  passed through a gas meter in order to determine the gas meter's accuracy.
"Sub-metering" means the placement of a meter downstream of a
				  custody transfer meter.
"Supercompressibility" means a value used in some flow equations
				  for differential pressures (for example, orifice metering). In general, the
				  supercompressibility factor is equal to the square root of the quotient of gas
				  compressibility at base conditions divided by the gas compressibility at flowing
				  conditions. Supercompressibility is not to be confused with
				  "compressibility".
"Tertiary Equipment" means a device that electronically converts
				  signals from a gas measurement system (meter or auxiliary equipment or both) to a
				  useful form such as flow rate (for example, flow computers).
"Therm" means a unit of measurement representing a quantity of
				  heat equivalent to 100,000 BTUs and expresses the energy content of natural
				  gas.
"Transducer" means a sensing element capable of transforming
				  values of physical properties such as pressure or temperature into equivalent
				  electrical signals.
"Transmitter" means a device designed to enhance the transmission
				  of information from a transducer to a flow computer by the addition of an electrical
				  circuit that converts the transducer output to a standard signal in analog, digital
				  or frequency form.
"Turbine Meter" means an inferential meter that measures gas flow
				  by counting the revolutions of a rotor with blades, which turn in proportion to the
				  gas flow velocity.
b)
				Incorporations by Reference. The following materials are incorporated by reference
				as of the date stated and include no later editions or amendments.
American Gas Association, 400 North Capitol Street, NW, Washington
				  DC 20001
AGA Report No. 3, Orifice Metering of Natural Gas - Part 2:
				  Specification and Installation Requirements, XQ0002 (April 2000)
AGA Report No. 7, Measurement of Natural Gas by Turbine Meter,
				  XQ0601 (February 2006)
AGA Report No. 9, Measurement of Gas by Multipath Ultrasonic
				  Meters, XQ0701 (April 1, 2007)
AGA Report No. 11, Measurement of Natural Gas by Coriolis Meter,
				  XQ1301 (February 1, 2013)
AGA Gas Measurement Manuals - Part 15: Electronic Corrector,
				  XQ9901 (May 1999)
AGA Gas Measurement Manuals - Part 8: Electronic Flow Computers
				  and Transducers, Revised (1988), XQ8805 (May 1988)
American National Standards Institute and American Society for
				  Quality (American National Standards Institute, 25 West
				  43rd Street, 4th Floor, New
				  York, New York 10036)
Sampling Procedures and Tables for Inspection by Attributes,
				  ANSI/ASQ Z1.4 -2008 (January 1, 2008)
American National Standards Institute and American Gas Association
				  (American National Standards Institute, 25 West 43rd
				  Street, 4th Floor, New York, New York 10036)
Diaphragm-Type Gas Displacement Meters (Under 500 Cubic Feet Per
				  Hour Capacity), ANSI B109.1 -2000, AGA XQ0008 (June 2000)
Diaphragm-Type Gas Displacement Meters (500 Cubic Feet Per Hour
				  Capacity and Over), ANSI B109.2 -2000, AGA XQ0009 (June 2000)
Rotary-Type Gas Displacement Meters, ANSI B109.3 -2000, AGA XQ0010
				  (June 2000)