WAC 194-37-070   Documenting development of conservation targets.  (1) Ten-year potential. By January 1, 2010, each utility shall establish its ten-year cost-effective conservation resource potential. At least every two years thereafter, the public utility shall review and update this assessment for the subsequent ten-year period.

     (2) Biennial target. In January 2010, and each two years thereafter, each utility shall establish and make public a biennial conservation target. The utility's biennial target shall be no less than its pro rata share of its ten-year potential.

     (3) To document that the utility has established its ten-year potential and biennial target using methodologies consistent with those in the fifth power plan, the utility shall choose one of the documentation procedures set forth in subsection (4), (5), or (6) of this section, subject to the following conditions:

     (a) If a utility uses the conservation calculator, or the modified conservation calculator to determine its customer conservation ten-year potential, it must use the utility analysis option per subsection (6) of this section to compute any ten-year potential for production and distribution efficiencies.

     (b) If a portion of a utility's ten-year potential and biennial target includes calculations of efficiency gains from utility production and/or distribution efficiency measures, that portion of the ten-year potential or biennial target that are not included in the list of measures approved by the regional technical forum and listed on the planning, tracking and reporting web site shall carry the stamp of a registered professional engineer licensed by the Washington department of licensing.

     (c) If a utility includes production and/or distribution efficiencies in its target, then a utility's ten-year potential shall be the combined total of all cost effective achievable conservation in customer, distribution, and production efficiency measures available to that utility.

     (d) A utility will hold a noticed public meeting, which provides an opportunity for public comment, regarding its assessment of conservation potential. The utility will adopt the ten-year potential and the two-year conservation targets by action of the utility's governing board in a public meeting. Such public meeting may be conducted separately, or as part of public meetings conducted for resource planning, budget setting, or other related processes. The public notice will indicate that the meeting agenda includes the establishment of the utility's ten-year and biennial targets.

     (4) Conservation calculator option.

     (a) A utility that chooses this option will document its calculation of its pro rata biennial conservation targets based on its share of regional annual megawatt-hour retail sales using the NWPCC's conservation calculator. If the NWPCC updates its conservation calculator within twelve months of an even-numbered year, a utility may choose to use the NWPCC's most recent conservation calculator or the immediately preceding version.

     (b) Any utility that publishes a ten-year potential and biennial target with the customer sector portion of its biennial target equal to or higher than its target calculated using the conservation calculator has effectively documented its biennial target setting requirement for customer conservation.

     (c) Starting in 2010, a utility that uses the conservation calculator to establish its ten-year potential and biennial target may deduct its biennial customer sector conservation achievement that meets the criteria in WAC 194-37-080(2) from its share of the NWPCC's conservation resource potential for its subsequent assessment.

     (5) Modified conservation calculator option.

     A utility that chooses this option will document consistency with the NWPCC's methodologies by modifying its ten-year potential and biennial target as identified through the use of the conservation calculator by making the following adjustments to the NWPCC's analysis in the NWPCC's most recently published power plan:

     (a) Deduct conservation measures in the NWPCC's list not applicable to the utility's service territory;

     (b) Add conservation measures, that are not included in the NWPCC's list, but are applicable to the utility's service territory;

     (c) Modify the number or ratio of applicable units, such as the ratio of electrically heated houses or square footage of commercial space, if the utility has data surveys indicating that their data on applicable units varies from the NWPCC's;

     (d) Increase and/or reduce the per unit incremental resource savings for conservation measures, relative to the NWPCC's data for savings per unit;

     (e) Increase and/or reduce forecasted program costs;

     (f) Increase or decrease retail sales growth rates; and

     (g) Increase or decrease avoided distribution capacity cost savings.

     (6) Utility analysis option.

     (a) The NWPCC's analytical methodology for establishing the conservation resource potential and conservation targets for the Northwest power system is outlined in procedures (a)(i) through (xv) of this subsection. A utility that chooses this option will document that it established a ten-year potential using an analytical methodology consistent with these NWPCC procedures (a)(i) through (xv) of this subsection:

     (i) Analyze a broad range of energy efficiency measures considered technically feasible;

     (ii) Perform a life-cycle cost analysis of measures or programs, including the incremental savings and incremental costs of measures and replacement measures where resources or measures have different measure lifetimes;

     (iii) Set avoided costs equal to a forecast of regional market prices, which represents the cost of the next increment of available and reliable power supply available to the utility for the life of the energy efficiency measures to which it is compared;

     (iv) Calculate the value of the energy saved based on when it is saved. In performing this calculation, use time differentiated avoided costs to conduct the analysis that determines the financial value of energy saved through conservation;

     (v) Conduct a total resource cost analysis that assesses all costs and all benefits of conservation measures regardless of who pays the costs or receives the benefits. The NWPCC identifies conservation measures that pass the total resource cost test as economically achievable;

     (vi) Identify conservation measures that pass the total resource cost test, by having a benefit/cost ratio of one or greater as economically achievable;

     (vii) Include the increase or decrease in annual or periodic operations and maintenance costs due to conservation measures;

     (viii) Include deferred capacity expansion benefits for transmission and distribution systems in its cost-effectiveness analysis;

     (ix) Include all nonpower benefits that a resource or measure may provide that can be quantified and monetized;

     (x) Include an estimate of program administrative costs;

     (xi) Discount future costs and benefits at a discount rate based on a weighted, after-tax, cost of capital for utilities and their customers for the measure lifetime;

     (xii) Include estimates of the achievable customer conservation penetration rates for retrofit measures and for lost-opportunity (long-lived) measures. The NWPCC's twenty-year achievable penetration rates, for use when a utility assesses its twenty-year potential, are eighty-five percent for retrofit measures and sixty-five percent for lost opportunity measures achieved through a mix of utility programs and local, state and federal codes and standards. The NWPCC's ten-year achievable penetration rates, for use when a utility assesses its ten-year potential, are sixty-four percent for nonlost opportunity measures and twenty-three percent for lost-opportunity measures; the weighted average of the two is a forty-six percent ten-year achievable penetration rate;

     (xiii) Include a ten percent bonus for conservation measures as defined in 16 U.S.C. § 839a of the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act;

     (xiv) Analyze the results of multiple scenarios. This includes testing scenarios that accelerate the rate of conservation acquisition in the earlier years; and

     (xv) Analyze the costs of estimated future environmental externalities in the multiple scenarios that estimate costs and risks.

     (b) In addition to the requirements in subsection (6) of this section, the utility may document any variable listed in subsection (5) of this section to indicate that its conservation resource assessment methodology is consistent with the NWPCC's but results in unique conservation resource assessment outcomes.



[Statutory Authority: RCW 19.285.080(2). 08-07-079, § 194-37-070, filed 3/18/08, effective 4/18/08.]