ALERT: See DRA's December 18 press release on the CPUC vote to reward the utilties with $82 million in unverified energy efficiency incentives.
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On Thursday, December 18, the Commission is scheduled to vote on two competing decisons to determine how to treat incentive reward payments to the utilities for role their role as administrators of energy efficiency:
- DRA supports the Proposed Decision of the presiding judge which keeps previous Commission decisions intact and allows the verification process for achieved energy savings to play-out till the CPUC's independent evaluation is finalized in its January 2009 Verification Report.
- DRA opposes the Alternate Proposed Decision that would award the utilities $108 million based on outdated, inflated utility assumptions based on their self-reported goal achievements. It also seeks to change rules to the incentive mechanism going forward to favor expediency over actual energy savings, resulting in no accountability for the investment of ratepayer dollars.
Lack of actual energy savings may result in over-procurement and increased bills for ratepayers. But ultimately energy efficiency's power to be the quickest and most-cost effective method of mitigating greenhouse gas emission will be severely diluted and cost ratepayers more to achieve it.
DRA previously submitted the following comments to the Commission which provide greater details on our position:
See also: History of EE Incentive Mechanism Development