20170824AVU to Staff 74-83.pdf

AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/15/2017 CASE NO: AVU-E-17-01 / AVU-G-17-01 WITNESS: Heather Rosentrater
REQUESTER: IPUC – English/Terry RESPONDER: David Machado TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff-074 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST: Please provide the amount transferred to plant in service on a system-wide basis, and an Idaho jurisdictional basis for Distribution Minor Rebuild, and Meter Minor Blanket for the years 2012-2016.
RESPONSE: Staff_PR_074 Attachment A includes the requested transfers to plant information from 2012-2016
for the Distribution Minor Rebuild and Meter Minor Blanket business cases.
AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/21/2017 CASE NO: AVU-E-17-01 / AVU-G-17-01 WITNESS: Heather Rosentrater
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Paul Kimball TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff-075 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST: The Company states that the Meter Data Management (MDM) System will create operational efficiencies. Has the Company tried to quantify those efficiencies? If so, what were the results? If not, why not? Has the MDM system been placed in service? If so, when? If not, when is it
expected to be placed into service? RESPONSE:
See the Company’s response to Staff_PR_058.
AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/15/2017 CASE NO: AVU-E-17-01 / AVU-G-17-01 WITNESS: Karen Schuh
REQUESTER: IPUC – English/Terry RESPONDER: David Machado TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff-076 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST: Please provide the updated transfers to plant in service by month through May 2017, with the updated forecasts through December 2017.
RESPONSE: Staff_PR_076 Attachment A includes the requested transfers to plant information by month for
2017, with actual transfers to plant in service through May 2017 and updated forecasted transfers
to plant in service for June-December 2017.
AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/21/2017 CASE NO.: AVU-E-17-01/AVU-G-17-01 WITNESS: Elizabeth Andrews
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Annette Brandon TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff – 077 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST: Please update the Executive Labor adjustment for 2017 with each executive making a new declaration of the percentage of their time spend working on utility vs. non-utility operations. Please note that for purposes of this request, any executive time spent working on the Hydro One
acquisition of Avista should be separately identified or considered non-utility operations.

RESPONSE:
The Company is currently in the process of conducting a more recent survey of executive officers’ utility vs. non-utility allocations. We will supplement this data response as soon as available.
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AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/15/2017 CASE NO.: AVU-E-17-01/AVU-G-17-01 WITNESS: Elizabeth Andrews
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Joel Anderson TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff-078 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST:
Please provide an update to Adjustment 1.02 for electric and natural gas reflecting 2017 actuals.
Please also identify any changes to the 2018 amounts reflected in the workpapers and provide a summary of those changes. RESPONSE: Please see Staff_PR_078 Attachment A, B, C, D, E, F and G which provide an update to adjustment 1.02. Attachment A shows the updated adjustment reflecting a 2017 rate year. The remaining attachments are worksheets supporting the adjustment. See also Staff_PR_078 Attachment H which provides revised adjustment 1.02 for the 2018 rate
year. During review of this adjustment, it was found that the Company inadvertently failed to exclude the expiring amortization of the Colstrip Settlement (2-yr Amortization credit 2016-2017). This revision increases electric amortization expense $200,000 and electric revenue requirement $201,000.
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AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/08/17 CASE NO: AVU-E-14-0X / AVU-G-14-0X WITNESS: Elizabeth Andrews
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Jennifer Smith TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Fed. Reg. REQUEST NO.: Staff-079 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST: Please provide an update to the Company’s adjustment for uncollectible expense to account for any changes between the uncollectible expenses between electric and gas operations. Please provide a brief narrative of the reasoning for the change.
RESPONSE: Please see Staff_PR_079, Attachment A for the revised uncollectible expense adjustment and conversion factor workpapers reflecting updated information.
The filed uncollectible adjustment, used the actual write off balances as reported in customer care
and billing (CC&B) for either electric or natural gas. However, after further discussions with our credit and collections staff, it was determined that they cannot distinguish which balance is being written off, for combined electric and natural gas customers. Therefore, to properly reflect the level of write-offs for each service, total write-offs are combined and then allocated to either
electric or natural gas using the percentage of sales balances, as has been done in the years prior to
the new CC&B system. The effect of the revised electric and natural gas uncollectible adjustments on the Company’s proposed 2018 revenue requirements is a decrease of $45,000 for electric and an increase of
$44,000 for natural gas revenue. This change also impacts the Company’s filed net-operating-income-to-gross-revenue-conversion factor, as the uncollectible rate is a component of the overall proposed conversion factor. The impact of revising the conversion factor reduces the 2018 filed electric and natural gas revenue
requirements by $4,000 and $13,000, respectively. The impact on 2019 filed electric and natural gas revenue requirements, is a reduction of $2,000 and $1,000, respectively.
AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/16/2017 CASE NO.: AVU-E-17-01 & AVU-G-17-01 WITNESS: Elizabeth Andrews
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Annette Brandon TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff – 080 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST:
Please provide any communications and correspondence between the Company and its pension
actuaries regarding the level of pension expense for years 2017-2019.
RESPONSE: Please see Avista's response 080C, which contains TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY or CONFIDENTIAL information and exempt from public view and is separately filed under IDAPA 31.01.01, Rule 067 and 233, and Section 9-340D, Idaho Code. Please see the following attachments:

Staff_PR_080C Confidential Attachment A – 2016 Actuarial Valuation Report (Pension) Staff_PR_080C Confidential Attachment B – 2016 Actuarial Valuation Report (Post-Retirement)
Staff_PR_080C Confidential Attachment C – 2017-2021 Pension and Post-Retirement Medical expense estimates.

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AVISTA CORP. RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: WASHINGTON DATE PREPARED: 08/24/2017
CASE NO.: UE-170485 & UG-170486 WITNESS: Elizabeth Andrews
REQUESTER: UTC Staff - Hancock RESPONDER: Tara Knox TYPE: Data Request DEPT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff - 081 TELEPHONE: [phone] EMAIL: [e-mail]

REQUEST:
What percentage of retail kWh and therm volumes are subject to decoupling (i.e., total decoupled kWhs
sold divided by total kWhs sold)?
What percentage of retail kWh and therm revenues are subject to decoupling (i.e., total revenues from decoupled kWhs sold divided by total revenues from all kWhs sold)?
Please provide for each year since decoupling mechanisms were instituted.
RESPONSE: The table below shows the percentages of decoupled versus total usage and usage-related base rate
revenues in the approved test year and actual results for 2015 and 2016. Please note, power supply costs are included in total electric base rates whereas gas supply costs are recovered through an adder tariff schedule and therefore excluded from total natural gas base rates.
Electric kWh Usage-Based Therm Usage-Based
81% 67% 68% 93% 80% 65% 65% 93%
80% 70% 68% 94%
80% 69% 66% 96%

AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/18/2017 CASE NO: AVU-E-17-01 / AVU-G-17-01 WITNESS: Heather Rosentrater
REQUESTER: IPUC – English/Terry RESPONDER: David Machado TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff-082 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST: Please provide an update to the Company’s O&M Offsets adjustment reflecting the removal of the expiring lease expense associated with the Company airplane.
RESPONSE: Staff_PR_082 Attachment A includes the requested update to the Company’s O&M Offsets
adjustment. In addition to the update for the lease expense associated with the Company airplane,
the attachment includes an update to align the jurisdictional allocation of the “Downtown Network New Warehouse/Ops Building” to the jurisdiction in which the investment will occur (i.e., updated to Washington from Common).
The update to the O&M offsets adjustment results in an incremental reduction to O&M expense of
$191,885 Idaho Electric and $50,555 Idaho Natural Gas for 2018. This revised O&M adjustment results in a reduction in 2018 rate year revenue requirement of $193,000 for electric and $51,000 for natural gas.
Note that the O&M offset associated with the removal of the expiring lease expense associated with the Company airplane is tied to the capital investment going into service in 2018 to exercise a lease option to purchase the airplane ($3,000,000 system in March 2018, $679,000 Idaho Electric and $178,000 Idaho Natural Gas). The revenue requirement associated with this capital investment was included in the Company’s 2019 rate year request of approximately $87,000 for
electric and $23,000 for natural gas. In order to match the savings of the expired lease, the capital investment to which this savings is associated with should also be reflected in the same 2018 rate year period.
AVISTA CORPORATION RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION JURISDICTION: IDAHO DATE PREPARED: 08/14/2017 CASE NO: AVU-E-17-01/AVU-G-17-01 WITNESS: Elizabeth Andrews
REQUESTER: IPUC RESPONDER: Liz Andrews TYPE: Production Request DEPARTMENT: State & Federal Regulation REQUEST NO.: Staff - 083 TELEPHONE: [phone]
REQUEST: Please provide an update to the Company’s electric Adjustment 2.12 (Colstrip and CS2 O&M Amortization) for 2017 using actuals instead of budgeted numbers where available. RESPONSE: See attachment Staff_PR_083 which provides actual information for Colstrip and CS2 O&M expense for the period January through July 2017 and budgeted information August through December 2017. Page 1 of Staff_PR_083-Attachment A provides revised Adjustment 2.12 including this updated information.

As of July 2017, the update in O&M expense for actual costs for the first seven months of 2017 would result in a minor difference to Adjustment 2.12 as proposed by the Company in its direct filed case, i.e. net change of $6,000 reduction to O&M amortization expense versus Company direct filing. The Company will supplement this data response when additional O&M expense for
the Colstrip and CS2 projects are available.