20160906AVU to Staff 117.doc

AVISTA CORPORATION
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/25/2016
CASE NO.: AVU-E-16-03 WITNESS: William Johnson
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: William Johnson
TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: Power Supply
REQUEST NO.: Staff - 117 TELEPHONE: [phone]

REQUEST:

Given the 20% bonus Apprenticeship Credit provided by Washington State for Palouse Wind RECs, please explain why this has not been recognized in past sales of these RECs and identify any limitations as to the use of the Apprenticeship Credit.

RESPONSE:

The 20% bonus Apprenticeship Credit is provided under Washington’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to generation projects that used a minimum amount of qualified apprentice hours during construction. The Palouse Wind Project qualified for the 20% bonus Apprenticeship credit and each REC generated by the project counts as 1.2 RECs for the Washington (RPS). The bonus Apprenticeship Credit is not a separate REC recorded in WREGIS and it cannot be bifurcated from the underlying REC. All Palouse RECs from 2012 through 2015 were sold to entities using them outside of the State of Washington, and therefore all bonus Apprenticeship Credits went unrealized as we can’t bifurcate the REC from the bonus Apprenticeship Credit.  Idaho received their jurisdictional share of all Palouse Wind REC sales revenue through 2015.  2016 is the first year Avista will use Palouse Wind RECs to meet the RPS.  The final 2016 Washington RPS compliance report will be filed in 2018 and when Palouse Wind RECs are retired for RPS compliance purposes there will be a credit in the Idaho PCA for the Idaho jurisdictional share of Palouse Wind RECs that were used for Washington RPS compliance.  The bonus Apprenticeship Credit will count towards Washington RPS compliance and will make more Kettle Falls RECs (which are both Washington and California eligible) available for sale and Idaho will receive their jurisdictional allocation of those revenues in addition to the PCA credit for Palouse Wind RECs used for Washington compliance.

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