20130628Public Hearing Volume IV.pdf

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BEFoRE THE rDAHo puBr,rc urrlrrrES coMMrssiorrfllll JUil 2-n
IN THE MATTER OF IDAHO POWER
COMPANYIS APPLICATION FOR
AUTHORITY TO MODIEY ITS NET
METER]NG SERVICE AND TO INCREASE
THE GENERATION CAPACTTY LIMIT
i-i,'. i:,".ll;,.ii :-CASE NO.
rPc-E-12-21
PUBLIC
HEAR]NG
HEARING BEEORE
COMMISSIONER MARSHA H. SMITH (Presiding)
COMMISS]ONER PAUL KJELLANDER
COMMISSIONER MACK A. REDFORD
PLACE: Commission Hearing Room
472 West Washj-ngton Street
Boj-se, Idaho
DATE: ,-June 11, 2073
VOLUME IV - Pages 460 - 51 4
r-
POST OFFICE BOX 578
BOtSE, TDAHO 8370.1
208-336-9208
HEIIRIGK
COURT REPORTING
,9rr'r',i,,y tl" fina/wra,rrfy, ehao lfl6
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
APPEARANCES
Eor the Staff:KARL KLEIN, EsQ.
Deputy Attorney General
412 West Washington
Boise, Idaho 83702
LISA D. NORDSTROM, Esq.
and JULIA A. HfLTON, Esq.
Idaho Power Company
I22l West Idaho Street
Boise, Idaho 83702
KEN MILLER
Clean Energy Program Dj-rector
Snake River Al]iance
Post Office Box L73t
Boise, fdaho 83701
For Idaho Power Company:
For Snake River AII-iance:
83701
APPEARANCES
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 518, BOTSE, fD
.fohn Weber
(Publ-ic)
KeIJ-y Hogan
( Public)
Reed Burkholder
( Public )
Michael- Heckler
( Public )
Robert Blurton
(Publ-ic)
Scott Moore
( PubIic)
Marianne Baer
( PubIic)
Haro1d Ori-en
( Public )
Kenneth Jensen
( Publ-ic )
Bifl Robison
( PubIic)
Barbara Loeding
( PubIic )
Mike Medberry
(Publ-ic)
Doug Buell-(PubIic telephonic)
Laura Reynolds(Public telephonic)
Mr. Klein
Statement
Mr. Klein
Statement
Commissioner Smith
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
Mr. Klein
Statement
Mr. Klein
Statement
Mr. Kleln
Statement
Mr. Klein
Statement
Commissioner Smith
Mr. KIein
Statement
Mr. Klein
Statement
Mr. Klein
Statement
Mr. Kl-ei-n
Statement
Mr. Klein
Statement
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
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483
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49L
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499
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572
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WITNESS
INDEX
EXAMINATION BY PAGE
83701
INDEX
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
INDEX
EXHIBITS
Peter Eitzsimmons(Publ-ic telephonic)
Wal-ter Rowntree(PubIic - telephonic)
Mary McGown
( PubIic)
Anne Hausrath
( Public)
David Monsees
(Publ-ic)
Alan Hausrath
( Public)
,Joanie Fauci
( PubIic)
Ke1Iey Dagley
( Public)
Steve White
( PubIic)
Greg Olson
( Public)
John Ryan
( Public)
Sienna White
( Public)
(No exhibj-ts were marked. )
Mr. Klein
Statement
Statement
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
Mr. KIein
Statement
Mr. Klein
Statement
Mr. KIein
Statement
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
Sworn
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
Mr. Kl-ein
Statement
Mr. KIein
Statement
EXH]BTTS
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528
532
536
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s39
s39
542
542
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547
548
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560
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 5'78, BOTSE, rD
BOISE IDAHO TUESDAY JUNE 11 20]-3 7:00 P.M
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Good evening, ladies and
gentlemen, and welcome to the public hearing before the Idaho
PubIj-c Util-ities Commission in Case No. TPC-E-1,2-27, further
identified as In the matter of Idaho Power Company's
Application for authority to modify its net metering servj-ce
and to increase the generation capacity l-imit. We welcome you.
I'm goj-ng to describe the process briefly, and our purpose
tonight is to hear from you and that's how we'l1 use our time.
My name is Marsha Smith; f'm one of your three
Commissioners, and f wil-l chair tonightrs hearing. On my left
is Commissioner Paul- Kjellander, who is also president of the
Commission,' and on my right 1s Commissioner Mack Redford. The
three of us are the Publ-ic Utilities Commission and will- be
making a Decj-sion in this matter. We spent the day having
technical hearings with the parties.
I woul-d like to acknowledge representation for
Idaho Power Company, Ms. Nordstromi representation for the
Staff , Mr. Klein; and for Snake River Al-l-iance, Mr. Mil-l-er.
Are there any other parties present who wish to
be acknowl-edged?
Seeing noner ds I stated earlier, the purpose of
tonj-ghtrs hearj-ng is to take public testimony. We deeply
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTTNG
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, ID
appreciate the written comments that have already been filed.
They are part of our record, the Commissioners have read them,
and they wil-l- be consi-dered when we del-iberate and make our
Decision. So we hope that tonight's hearing, if you have fil-ed
written comments, it's not necessary to repeat what you said in
them because we do have those. If you have new or addltional
information to add, we'd be pleased to receive that.
For those people who are testifying in person
here at the Commission, I have the l-ist of those who have
signed up. I wil-l cal-l your name. You wil-l- come forward.
Commissioner Kjellander wil-l- ask you to raise your right hand
and gj-ve you the oath so when you sit in the stand, then Staff
attorney Mr. Kl-ein will ask you some questions to identify
yourself so you will be clearly on the record. And after that,
you will be free to make your statement. There will be the
opportunity for the Commissioners and the parties who are
present to ask you questions if they need to to clarify your
testimony.
So then we will- l-et' s see. I
sj-gned up so far to testify here j-n our hearing
think we'fl- take those people; then we will- go
the telephone and take them; and then if there
people who sign up in the interim, we can take
The first person I have signed up
Mr. John Webber (phonetic) or Weber (phonetic).
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have L2 people
room, and I
to the people on
are further
them after that.
to testify is
Sorry.
83701
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HEDRICK COURT
P. O. BOX 578,
REPORTING
BOTSE, rD
WEBER
Public
Whichever.
JOHN WEBER,
appearing as a publj-c witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testified as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLE]N:
O. Good even j-ng. I I m Karl Klein, I 'm the attorney
for the Commission Staff, and I'm just going to ask you a few
preliminary questj-ons to get you on the record.
Would you please state your full- name and spe1I
your l-ast name for the record?
A. John Weber, W-E-B-E-R.
O. What's your maili-ng address?
A. 6508 West Everett Street, 83704, in Boise.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. Yes.
O. And have you previously submitted written
comments or testimony in this case?
A. Yes, I have.
O. Okay. Do you have a statement you'd like to make
tonight as wel-l-?
A. Yes.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
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Public
O. If you coul-d please l-imit that to new new
matters, not rehashing what you've prevj-ousIy written, that
would help.
A. Exactly. It's all- new information.
O. Okay, thank you. Go ahead.
THE WITNESS: I wou1d l-ike to say that Staff
comments regarding this case are some of the best and most
thoughtful f have ever read. I agree with each point of the
comments, including that an j-ncreased service charge and a
basic load charge be brought up in a general rate. These
should apply to all customers, not just net metering customers.
f al-so agree that checks should not be i-ssued to
net metering customers, and doll-ar credj-ts shoul-d carry over
for as long as a customer is receiving service. Customers
wanti-ng to receive checks should sign power purchase
agreements, as this is not the i-ntent of net metering. The
intent is to reduce or el-iminate electric bi1ls using a
renewable resource. I ask the Commission to foll-ow the Staff's
recommendati-ons .
I would l-ike
college textbooks regarding
submitting this case. The
regardless. History shows
customers angry don't fair
exception. At my job, if a
to ask Idaho Power if they revj-ewed
sal-es and marketing before
customer 1s always right,
that companies that make their
wel-l- in the long term. This is no
customer is upset, the flrst thing
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HEDRICK COURTP. O. BOX 578,
REPORTING
BOISE, ID
WEBER
PubIic
I do is publicly apologize to them.The second thing I do is
make them sati-sfled however I need to. f recommend to Idaho
Power publicly apologize to the Commissioners and Staff of the
PUC, the renewable energy installers, the Intervenors, and
their net metering customers for wasting their time and money.
If this is truly a revenue neutral- proposal and a1l- of the
customers are agaj-nst the proposal, I ask that Idaho Power
withdraw the case.
Lastly, I would like to bring up that regulated
investor-owned utility model- will no longer work in the future,
as discussed on a Commonwealth Club forum this year. fOUs were
compared to the Kodak company. I cal-l- it the electrica1
utility death spiral-, and it works l-ike this: Because of
efficiency in sol-ar, customers use less power. To make up for
the revenue l-oss, utilities raise its rates, which encourages
more customers to increase their use of efficiency and solar,
which causes util-ities to further increase rates, and on and
on.
Many cities and countj-es are
providing electricity to their citizens.
because the stakeholders and sharehol-ders
Another model that may work
Company only manage the grid and does not
generati-on. They would make their revenue
charges and tiny commissj-ons on all power
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now working on
This model works
are the same people.
would be the Utility
own any of its own
in monthly service
that is bought and
83701
sol-d, l-ike the New York Stock Exchange.
If Idaho Power were to have its proposal approved
and make it uneconomical for customers to net meter, they woul-d
be making it more economical for customers to get off the grid.
One main reason for the dramatic decrease in the
price of solar was the feed-in tariff Germany adopted a decade
ago. Germany now has subsidies for residential storage which
will brj-ng about a decrease in the cost of residential- storage
in the future. In the US, only utilities can sell electricity
to customers, but everyone on the planet has the right to
generate their own el-ectricity.
Thank you for your thoughtful considerations of
my comments.
COMMISSIONER SMITH:
Ms. Nordstrom.
Let's see if there are any
questions.
questions.
MS. NORDSTROM: None from the Company.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Mr. Klein.
MR. KLEIN: None from Staff.
COMMISSIONER REDFORD: No.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Looks l-ike we don't have any
We appreciate your testimony.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMfSSIONER SMITH: Thank you.
Ke11y Hogan.
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HEDRICK COURT
P. O. BOX 578,
REPORTING
BOISE, ID
WEBER
Publ-ic83701
KELLY HOGAN,
appearing as a pub1ic witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testified as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Would you please state your ful-I name and spell
your l-ast name for the record?
A. Kel1y Hogan, H-O-G-A-N.
O. What's your mailing address?
A. 943 West Overland Road, Meridian, 83642.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I am.
O. And have you prevj-ousIy submitted written
comments or testimony in this case?
A. I have submitted no written comments at this
poj-nt.
O. Okay. If you have a statement you'd like to
make, please go ahead.
A. Okay.
THE WITNESS: Agaln, ily name 1s Ke1ly Hogan, and
I am the owner of one of the largest solar arrays in the state.
ft's l-ocated at 943 West Overland Road. It was instal-led about
18 months ago. Itrs on a gold LEED certified building, and we
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HEDRICK COURT
P. O. BOX 578,
REPORTING
BOTSE, ID
HOGAN
PubIic83701
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
HOGAN
PubIic
made the investment in the solar array to improve our
efficiency of our business but also to reduce our carbon
footprint.
In the last 18 months, we've produced 58,885
kj-l-owatt hours put back into the Idaho Power grid. That has
averted approximately 41,500 kilograms of carbon dioxide lnto
our atmosphere in the Treasure Va11ey. Basically, using the
201-7 lndustry standards, we've provided the energy necessary
for six households in the Treasure Va11ey at no cost to Tdaho
Power.
My investment is augmented by the regular arrival
of Chevy Volts to charge and a zero motorcycle commute from
Idaho City for 25 cents each w&y, of which we provide the
electricity for the return trip free of charge because they are
an employee in our building.
AIl of this was installed and done at no cost to
the Idaho Power, but we do provide that energy back into the
grid.
The system is operational and run to generate one
meter for generation and one meter for consumption. In some of
the j-nformation that Irve recently revj-ewed, it showed me as
one of the examples of large amounts of money that were being
paid by Idaho Power to justify the change in this proposed
sj-tuation. What was that is the farthest from the truth,
because the facts are this:
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HEDRICK COURT REPORT]NG
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
HOGAN
Public
I have two meters: One generation meter and one
consumption meter. By design, I put that in there for an
accounting reason, not necessarily anything el-se. I like to
see checks as opposed to see credits. It also a1lows me to see
j-t on a running basis.
The facts are that we've been paid over the l-ast
18 months $5,095 by Idaho Power on our generation meter,
including the $S service fee each month. The meter that is
eight feet away has accrued bil-Is of $20,266. Doing the math,
I have provided approxj-mately 25 percent of my own energy
requirements, and thus me being used as an example that is
gaming the system or potentially benefiting from the net
metering program is out of l-ine.
Considering the proposed approach frve had a
chance to review some of it the current net metering system
seems fair to busj-nesses l-ike myself that seek to improve the
future whll-e reducing costs. ft allows easy accounting for
consumption and for generati-on by having dedicated meters if
the venue decides to do that.
In my opinion, the proposed system would
convolute an a.l-ready complex process with speculation, making
the business owner decide when they will use energy and how
J-ong that energy and credits will- Iast, forcing time.l-j-nes of
which they must consume more energy in order to not l-ose their
credits.
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HEDRICK COURT
P. O. BOX 518,
REPORTING
BOTSE, rD
HOGAN
Publ-ic
I think that the proposed system woul-d open the
system up for people gaming the business side of it by putting
smal-I panels on the roof with a single microi-nverter that now
makes them a business that is providing for it, even though the
generation is smal-f and minute and reaLly not an advantage to
the grid over all.
It complicates the accounting processes for
businesses to have to bank up and use credits to avoid losi-ng
them, and I donrt think that that's a burden that we should be
burdened with as a business.
It also sfams the door on people that have
invested in good faith on a program they were abl-e to develop
an ROI business deci-sion with based off of the previous
situation that was in place.
In my mind, a meter is a meter and I see no
significant cost difference in associating a bill with it,
whether it is a credit or a debit. We do it every day in our
accountj-ng systems. The quantity is so few that this seems
l-ike a smoke screen for me. And for people like me, Irm paying
two meter charges anyway, so under the new proposal, I wou1d
only have one.
The bottom l-ine, in my opinion, is the PUC shoul-d
deny the changes to rates but al-low unl-imited kilowatts for the
current net metering program. When we made the business
decj-sj-on to move in this dj-rection, it was of substantial-
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HEDRICK COURT
P. O. BOX 578,
REPORTING
BOISE, ID
HOGAN
Publ-ic
investment. We ran an ROI like any other investment, and that
ROI made sense based off of what the policies were that were i-n
place.
Idaho Power I think should embrace alternative
energy productlon and factor it into a long-term vision that
they are to be a long-term provider. Unbeknownst to me, the
first person that testified made the same exact point that I
have here, is the future will- be one of improved production
capabilities in sofar and wind equi-pment. Werre seeing a
logarithmic improvement in these technol-ogies every year.
Improved efficiencies in homes and business energy needs, and
the option of localized storage allowing people to easily
manage their own energy needs and reguirements, will change the
pace of what the grid does i-n the very near future. Idaho
Power should lead the nation by embracing these technol-ogies
and be a pj-oneer in adapting the changj-ng energy environment
that awaits us that j-s going to be solved by technology.
I wish to thank Idaho Power for designing the
original net metering program of which we took advantage of. I
encourage them to consider that businesses owners l-ike myself
that will make substantial- investments in the solar grid will-
continue to do so if the ROI makes sense and has a viable
return on investment.
I al-so l-ike to thank the PUC for the oversight
and objectiveness in this process. As a public CommJ-ssion, it
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
HOGAN (Com)
Publ-ic
is imperative that both the objectives of the public and the
util-ities are met. I appreciate the opportunity to present
this information, and I l-ook forward to your reconrmendatlons.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Let's see if there are any
questJ-ons.
Any questions from the parties?
MS. NORDSTROM: No.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: How about from the
Commissi-oners ?
COMMISSIONER REDEORD: No.
EXAMTNAT]ON
BY COMMISSIONER SMITH:
O. f want to be sure that I understood the figures
that you gave at the beginning. So, you have two meters, and
if I understood correctly, there was 5,000 and some dollars
that you were paid?
A. That's correct.
O. And then there was another meter where there was
20,000 and some dol-Iars that you would have been biIled but you
weren I t ?
A. No, that's not correct.
O. Okay, so okay.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
HOGAN (Com)
Publ-ic
A. V[e have two meters. One is just the
generation orr the consumption of our building.
O. Right. Okay.
A. So over the course of the last 18 months, we've
paid $18,000 to Idaho Power.
O. Okay. So those are the bil1s you've paid?
A. Those are the normal bills just like any other
business that our business accrues for the energy use. To
offset that, our generation meter runs backwards most of the
time.
O. Right.
A. And we received $5,095 over that same 18 months.
Result is that about 25 percent of our bill is being offset by
our solar generation.
0. A11 right.
A. But from an accounting standpoint, it makes it
very easy.
O. So there's been no time in which your generation
exceeded your consumption?
A. There has never been a time like that, and we
knew that going in, but it was ironj-c that we were number four
on the list of the payouts by Idaho Power in some of the
information that f saw.
O. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that
clarification.
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83701
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Reed Burkhol-der.
REED BURKHOLDER,
appearing as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as foll-ows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Mr. Burkholder, woul-d you please state your full-
name and spell your l-ast name for the record?
A. Reed Burkholder, B-U-R-K-H-O-L-D-E-R.
O. What's your residence address?
A. 6105 Twj-n Springs Drj-ve in Boise, 83709.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I am.
O. And have you prevlously submitted written
testimony or comments in this case?
A. I have.
O. And, with that, if you have a statement to make,
would you please Limit it to new information?
A. Okay.
O. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: I have a 3.7 kil-owatt photovoltaic
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HEDRICK COURT REPORT]NG
P. O. BOX 5'78, BOTSE, rD
BURKHOLDER
Publ-ic83701
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REPORTING
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BURKHOLDERPublic
array on my residential- roof that cost $18,375
recelpt here if anyone would like to see that.
I have the
I'm deeply disappointed in Idaho Power for
proposing to discourage solar by adding fees and raj-sing the
service charges for net metering customers. You see, we have a
serious problem that sooner or l-ater we need to deal- with:
This j-s a graph of CO2 concentrations measured at
the NOAA station in Hawaii. This is when Al- Gore wrote his
book Earth in the Bafance. This graph was in there, but it
ended right there, in L992. And look what we've done since
then. Wel-l-, the graph has not only gone up, j-t's accelerated.
So, our concentratj-ons of CO2 in the atmosphere are rising and
rising and rising. I heard recently that they have gone to 400
parts per million.
Now, Idaho Power is part of this problem. They
have three coal--fired plants Va1my, Boardman, and Jim
Bridger and three nature gas-fired plants Danskj-n,
Bennett Mountain, and LangJ-ey Gu1ch. Net metering customers,
on the other hand, are part of the sol-ution with our sol-ar
arrays, our wind turbines, and our hydro facilities. Let me
ill-ustrate this.
If I were an average Idaho Power customer, I
woul-d have purchased 22,000 kilowatt hours of electricity in
the nearly two years sj-nce my panels went up on the roof. But
since I have 27 solar panels and since I have tried to reduce
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my power consumption, my purchases from Idaho Power have been
reduced to zero point zero zero. Rooftop I'm telling you,
roof top sol-ar is a really cool- ef f iciency measure. This rea1ly
works.
So, we've got this problem; this big, big, big,
big, big problem: Our oceans are becoming more acidic; our j-ce
packs are melting in the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland; the
cl-j-mate is becoming j-ncreasingfy warm, unpredictable, and
viol-ent; sea levels are rising. Who would have guessed, who
could possibly have guessed, that the subways of New York City
would be flooded with sea water during Hurricane Sandy?
I'm just going to suggest to this group and to
our Commj-ssioners that, you know, it might be a good j-dea to
face this problem and deal- wlth it. So I urge you to foll-ow
the Staff's recommendation recommendations and deny Idaho
Power's requests for policy changes for net metering customers.
I also urge that you double the rate paid to net metering
customers from the current ful-f retail rate to two times the
current ful-l retail- rate. If you make policy decisions that
encourage renewab1e energy development in Idaho, you will
become part of the solution.
Thank you for the opportunity to ta1k.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Burkholder.
Let's see if there are any questions.
I won't cal-l- on you anymore. If you have a.
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question, just indicate to me.
Thank you very much for appearing.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Michael Heckler.
MICHAEL HECKLER,
appearing as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as foll-ows:
EXAMINATTON
BY MR. KLE]N:
O. Good evening.
A. Good evening.
A. Would you please state your fuIl name and speI1
your last name for the record?
A. My name is Michael Heckler. The last name is
H-E-C-K-L-E_R.
a. What is your mailing address?
A. f live in Bolse, 2245 Roanoke Drj-ve, 83'7L2.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. Yes.
O. And have you previously submitted a written
statement or comments in this case?
A. Yes, on May 3rd.
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O. So if you have a statement to make, please limit
it to new information. Thanks.
A. I wil-1 do that.
THE WfTNESS: I'd like to talk to you about a
potential- win-win outcome from this docket, and one that would
leverage the existing substantial investment in smart meters.
To harness that leverage, I propose that Idaho Power purchase
solar inverters and provlde them to new at no cost to new
solar net metering customers. Sol-ar j-nverters are now
avail-able that can provj-de power support on the distribution
system. Those are the types of inverters that I propose that
the Company purchase. If the Company control-Ied the AC output
at some substantial- number of net metering sites, they could
potentially reduce power losses on the distribution system.
Such a reduction in operating .l-osses provides a win for all
ratepayers.
So.l-ar net metering customers provide other
benef its to al-l- ratepayers. Solar net metering customers
produce power on those hot, sunny summer days when the Company
faces its highest system l-oads. That power reduces the
Company's need to access peak generation and firm transmi-ssion.
Today, both of the Company's wj-tnesses testified
that Idaho Power hasn't analyzed the value of solar net
metering in reducing the Company's transmission and generation
costs. In contrast, Mr. Beach's unrebutted testimony
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quantifies the substantial cross-subsidy that soLar net
metering customers provide to nonsolar net metering ratepayers.
His analysis shows that non-net metering customers have a
provide a potential win have a potential win everytime a new
sofar net metering customer comes online.
Future solar net metering customers would also
win. They woul-d obviousl-y benefit by having an essential
component of their systems that being the j-nverter
supplied to them at no cost.
They might al-so reap some benefits of easier
permittlng. Some jurisdictions might be more comfortabl-e
permitting a solar system if the component that l-inks the solar
panels to the grid has Idaho Power's stamp of approval.
Idaho Power could win in a couple of ways:
In operatJ-ng these so.Iar inverter controls, the
Company woul-d have an opportunity to further develop and
enhance its operational excell-ence at the distribution l-evel-.
Assuming an appropriate regulatory approach could
be developed, the Company cou.l-d afso win by having an
opportunity to earn a rate of return on the va1ue of the
i-nverters. f nverters cost about as much as other soluti-ons the
customer the Company is looking at to meet its future energy
and capacity needs. Buildj-ng transmisslon like B to H to
access energy and capacity is estimated to cost about $430 per
kiLowatt. Depending on the quantity purchased and the features
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desired, inverters priced j-n the 400 to $500 per-kilowatt range
coul-d access energy and capacity from Idaho rooftops.
It's not appropriate to go into more detail- now,
but I stand ready to work with Staff, the Company, other
parties if the Commission desires to further examine this idea.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMf TH: Thank you, Mr. Heckl-er. We
appreciate your comments.
Are there any questions?
Nor 7, but thank you for being creative and
thoughtful.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Robert Blurton.
ROBERT BLURTON,
appearj-ng as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as foll-ows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
o. Hi.
A. Hel]o .
0. Wou1d you please state your ful-l- name and spe11
your last name for the record?
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BLURTON
Public
A. Robert Blurton, B-L-U-R-T-O-N.
O. And what is your mailing address?
A. 2100 South Virginia Avenue, Bolse.
a. Are you a customer of Idaho Power?
A. I am.
O. Have you previously submitted written comments or
testj-mony in this case?
A. f havenrt.
O. If you have a statement you'd l-ike to make,
please go ahead.
A. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: About nine years d9o, I started
studying energy and I started reading every credibl-e book that
came out on oiI, natural gas, coal, hydropower, and sofar. And
f've heard that you fol-ks understand that our resources are
dwindling, and itrs cal1ed peak oi1 theory, or peak oiI. That
covers it. But what we're looking at across al-l- forms of
energy is depletion.
Our dams are filling in with silt.
Our oil is getting more expensive and harder to
find.
Our natural- gas is now the fracking is putting
the supply out there but it's a Ponzi scheme. So we're
producing fracked gas now at $Z a therm and selling it at $4,
so that is somethj-ng that's not going to last.
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Our coa1, the last credibl-e book on coaf said
that we have about ten years of economically viable coaL left
i-n Ameri-ca.
The next place we're going wj-th this j-s biomass.
We're kind of burning the forests, ds I understand.
So, we have no future with fossil fuels. V{e have
no future with the dams. It's all- headed off a cliff. In
fact, there's a concept known as the net energy cl-iff where
these things that we're burnj-ng now to create the power that
Idaho Power is sending to us, those things are going to be too
precj-ous to burn. And we don't know exactly when that's going
to happen, but it's going to come in the next few years.
So if we want electricity in the future, we're
going to have to have soIar, we're going to have to have wind,
because al-1 of those other things are going away.
And I'm a particular fan of the concept called a
feebate. You want to take money from the thing you don't
want -- which is a reliance on fossil- fuels,'and dams which are
going to f ilI in with silt and we'l-l- never be abl-e to dredge
those dams, it's not going to be economical-Iy viable,'w€ do not
want to burn the forests so we want to take money that's now
being generated from those dirty things that are no longer
going to be here and we want to put that into something that's
goi-ng to have a future.
And we have a very short window. And I have
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friends within the PUC and they say that everyone within the
Public Utilities Commission understands peak oi1 theory; they
understand that applies to oi1, coal-, natural gas, everything
you mine. There's no future in that stuff. If we want to be
able to flip the lights onr if we want hospital-s that function,
we're totally dependent on refrigerationr so many things from
electricity, that we're not going to have that unless we start
right now converting to so1ar, wind, things that are not
dependent on burnJ-ng something.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you for your comments.
Is there any questions?
Thank you very much, Mr. Blurton; appreciate your
com]-ng.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Scott Moore.
SCOTT MOORE,
appearing as a public wltness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-l-ows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLE]N:
A. Mr. Moore, could you please state your full name
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and spell your last name for the record?
A. Yes. Scott Moore, M-O-O-R-E.
0. And what is your mailing address?
A. 1840 East Mary Lane, Meridian, Idaho.
O. Are you an fdaho Power customer?
A. Yes, I am.
O. And have you previously submitted written
comments or testj-mony j-n this case?
A. Yes, I have.
O. So if you have a statement to make, please go
ahead and do that, and limit it to new information if you
would.
A. Okay.
O. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: So I'd l-ike to begi-n that f am a
residential sol-ar net metering customer.
And I also have a business account under a
newly-formed start-up business for developing al-ternate energy
and currently that business is located in Lowman, Idaho, where
we recently, the end of l-ast year, designed a test model- of a
small- hydro project for generating some power that was
attractive to other people in rural communitj-es that had that
resource avail-abl-e with the i-ntent to move forward but
developing that business into somethj-ng viable, and no sooner
had we got the system online and were starting to work on the
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PubIic
business plan that we were notifj-ed of this proposed change to
net metering, which virtually at this poj-nt put the business
venture completely on hold and brought into question the even
contj-nued operatj-on of the hydro plant since that busj-ness
right now doesn't have a Iot of power demands and will- recej-ve
some credit under the net metering program.
So and then al-so 1n addition, I had recently
instal-l-ed a seven kW system at my home resldence in Meridj-an to
offset some of the lrrigation needs and normal- power usage.
Knowing that system was al-ready underdesigned and most of the
components had been purchased before, if f was notified of
these changes, if I had become aware of the proposed changes
and the impact that it woul-d have on me, the return on
investment would have been something that I would not have
al-located resources to do that with.
So along those lines that after reviewing the
proposed changes from Idaho Power and attending many of the
meetj-ngs and being j-nvol-ved in talking to other customers that
are on sofar or other energy sources, I can't find reaIIy
anything in Idaho Power's Request that f coul-d support.
And even what appeared to be attractive of
doubJ-ing the cdp, once I real-ized that from a business point of
view and trying to tal-k to customers, the first thing that's
come up several times is with the uncertainty in the cap maybe
as short as three years away, the potential for significant
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Publ-ic
changes, most people aren't interested in investing in energy.
So, I would actually like to see the cap el-imi-nated regardless
of what's decided on the other matters, and as suggested in
earlier testimony today, other mechani-sms be put in place to
monitor the effectiveness of the net meterlng program.
And one of the things that has been reoccurring
from the beginning from Idaho Power's point of view is that
this is all about fai-rness, and it seems that it only appears
to be fairness on a certain subgroup of customers that realIy
aren't different than other residential.
And the first example that personally comes to me
is that I use a cabin up in the Lowman area occasionally and we
were looking at putting a couple smal-l- sofar panels on that,
but in I guess regardless of whether they're sol-ar panels,
what I hear from Idaho Power is that because solar customers
are effectively low-usage customers from a power consumption,
if they offset their kil-owatt energy bill, that that l-evels
them not paying their ful-l- f ixed cost. Wel-l- in the cabin
situati-on, primarily the energy usage in that is when we visit
it a few times j-n the winter months and go up there and turn on
the electric furnace and it runs for a couple hours heating the
cabin up.
Wel1 under the new proposals for the net meterJ-ng
customers -- which one could infer that Idaho Power, tf they're
al-l- about fairness, would l-ike to see that on norma1
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residential customers -- that's an example where if I set a
basic l-oad charge of 20, 24 kilowatts and establish that two
months of the year, and that's average and that turns out to be
the average peak, that would effectively put a $30-a-month
basic load charge on the bil-I. Times 12 months, that's $360
for running the furnace two or three times a year, which I
don't agree that that's in l-ine with average power usage and
distributing the cost of distribution amongst al-l the
customers, in that case a small usage customer.
So I have an issue with that whol-e direction of
going over to trying to absolutely recover what is projected to
be fixed costs of every customer, and if you're not doing it,
[e, as a low usage customer, somehow unfairly gaming the system
or recei-ving cross-subsidies from other customers, so disagree
with that.
And then in part of my investigatj-on, Mr. Hogland
(phonetic) took time out of his busy schedule to speak to and
possibly a couple other customers that may appear to testify,
is that in the representationr ds he stated from Idaho Power,
that it's unacceptabl-e to make payments for excess power. I
found that it's been represented in those high-use power
payments is that that's not as it appears, ds he stated; that
some of the customers have separate meters for the generation
that may offset al-I or just a partiaf amount of the power, so
it doesn't quite reflect what's truJ-y going on. And that seems
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like a point that Idaho Power could have clearly addressed in
being transparent in what the circumstances are.
And so along with the power excess power
generation, in several tj-mes throughout the proceedj-ngs and the
meetings it's been suggested by the Power Company that excess
power is not appropriate for net metering, and that it's only
used to zero out your power consumption. And, you know, I've
never really clearly found anyplace in the documentatj-on that
you coul-dnrt go below zero. It's, you know, not referred to as
"net zero metering, " just "net metering. "
And what's been referred to is that a customer
like myself with my hydro or any other customers that may have
excess either continuously or from periodically year to year
should go under Schedule 86 for purchasing that, and I haven't
heard anybody tal-k about the details of Schedule 86. And when
you get into just the primary details of 86 as it woul-d appfy
to this, even the heading of it for purchases, ten megawatt
systems and sma1ler, there is a sectj-on for energy that's in
the one megawatt and 1ess.
And one of the requirements right off the bat
that is would certaj-nl-y be a problem for me or most other
people I know is the requirement of a mi11ion-do11ar
per-incident insurance policy, which in the case of a small-
generation would exceed the vaLue of the power.
In addition, it's a contract, whi-ch, you know,
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wise person would employ an attorney to be involved j-n contract
negotiation. Last time I checked, attorneys aren't generally
inexpensive. And so that would exceed the value of that.
And then looking into Schedule B6 further,
there's a l-ot of sections in there that the sel-Ier would be
requj-red to incur all- expenses related to the Power Company
from studies to any monitoringr ds wel-l- as that the se11er
would have to provide independent l-icense certj-fication at
their expense on inltial start-up and then periodically once
every year.
And this is for a system that might be, for
example, two or three kilowatts. In case of a hydro that runs
24/1 that does generate excess power, when you get to the
practical matter, Schedule B6 wou1d reaIly not be appropriate
for that. It appears that it's more appropriate for
medium-sized wj-nd farms that produce megawatts of power or
several hundred kilowatts that the val-ue of power does
accumulate to a signi-f icant amount.
So I think that leaves a huge gap and a question
out there that if net metering is not appropriate for small
excess generation, how can that generation exist within
fdaho Power and yet not get involved in Schedu1e 86 with all- of
its requirements.
f've also seen testimony from experts saying an
analysis that the power particularly generated from sol-ar at
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peak demands l-ine up with Idaho Power's peak demand and
expensive power purchase, which is refl-ected in their
newly-introduced time of day metering service which gj-ves
customers a lower power rate at offpeak in return for reducing
their demand during peak time. I would like to see the PUC
somehow get involved or direct Idaho Power to impJ-ement in
their new AMI metering system when they have the capability of
doing that to offer that to net metering customers. Currently
right now, they say their billing system does not al-l-ow net
metering billing combj-ned wlth time of day generation or
consumption, yet a customer can look at their own power bill-
and see what tj-me of day in at least an hourl-y or subhourly
increment of when that power is generated, so they could easily
credit solar producers at a higher rate durJ-ng those peak
times.
Which brings back the point that it is vaIuab1e
to have any kind of credit, whether j-t's an ongoing or
day-to-day credit, be based on a monetary system rather than a
kilowatt system, since kil-owatts have been determined that
they're not all equal dependent upon what time of day and time
of year they may be produced or consumed.
And as a closing statement, I woul-d l-ike to say
that one of the unmentioned val-ues of net metering customers
which I was informed several- years ago when I was looking into
doing this is that trying to justify the return on investment,
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it was mentioned that net metering people try very hard to get
their meter to slow down or run backwards. And once I
instal-l-ed my solar system last December on my residence, I
immediately become aware of where power is going, you know, why
it's being consumed in the middl-e of the night, and I finally
started listening to my wife and shut off the lights when I
feft the room.
So it does bring a pretty good point that the
val-ue in encouraging people to have al-ternate energy makes them
more aware of where their power is going and they do things to
consume ot, reduce their consumption, which seems like it's
exactly in l-ine with Idaho Power's proactive energy efficiency
service where they feel so strongly about it they're wil-l-ing to
tax us four percent on our everybody's power bil-I to pay for
other people to benefit from it, whereas a solar or a net
metering customer, they get that same benefit, possibly even
more, without having to spend any of Idaho Power or the other
ratepayers ' money.
So that's my conclusion.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Let's see if there are any
questions for you.
Apprecj-ate your comments.
THE WITNESS: A11 rj-ght. Thank you.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Mari-anne Baer.
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Publ-ic
MARIANNE BAER,
appearing as a public witness, being fj-rst duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as foll-ows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
0. Good evening.
A. Hi.
O. Hi. Would you please state your full- name and
speIl your last name for the record?
A. Marianne Baer, B-A-E-R.
O. And what is your mailing address?
A. 5200 Murphy Road, Kuna, Idaho.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I am.
O. And have you previously submitted written
comments or testimony in this case?
A. I have.
O. So if you have a statement, please go ahead and
make it, and limit your comments to new information if you
woul-d.
A. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: I don't have charts, I don't have
statistics. I'm just a frustrated solar homeowner with just a
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lot of questj-ons for Idaho Power
I guess the irony of this entire situation hit me
about two weeks ago when I had my furnace and air conditioning
people come out to give me estimates on a new system to replace
my agi-ng system, and they very kindly put together the most
energy efficient system and the prices for that, and I had to
go back and say, Coul-d you please give me the prices for the
l-east energy efficient system so I can -- because I don't know
if it's going to penalize me for being more energy efficient.
I have a new roof that I have to put on in two
weeks and I'm l-ooking at the same thing, where I wanted so1ar,
the Energy Star panels, and now I'm thinking, wellr drn I going
to be penalized for having the Energy Star panels on my roof?
Do I need to just go with the plain-o1d, non-energy efflcient
panels ?
And I feel- you know, I think most al-1 of us in
this room who have solar or wind were wanti-ng to be part of the
solution and we're trying to individually help our energy
needs; and I think none of us, because of the expense that went
into building a system, did this liqhtIy. I know I spent
several years thinking about it and debating it, looking at the
numbers, and, you know, it was only after talking with Idaho
Power and looking at the numbers where j-t seemed like it was a
wise f i-nancial decislon to make. And now it seems l-ike and
Idaho Power seemed in favor of it. But with in light of a1l
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HEDRICK COURT REPORT]NG
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of this that's going on, it seems, to me, that Idaho Power
wants us to be energy efficient but only a little bit. And if
Idaho Power had, you know, when we I had been looking at
numbers and if I had gone to Idaho Power and if they'd said,
Yes, we want you to be energy efficient and you can have solar
panels, but you can only generate this much or we're going to
penalize you, I might have thought something differently.
It just doesn't I don't think it's fair for
all of us who have systems to now have them rethinkj-ng thej-r
policy because of the financial commitments that all of us
made, and I'm sure for many of us it was money out af, you
know, nest eggs and savings that we determined to use to be
part of the solution for our energy needs.
And I think for most of us and people that I've
talked to, we al-l wanted it to benefit everyone. We wanted our
needs to be met. I have the securj-ty of knowi-ng if power goes
down that I can supply anj-mal-s to my farm -- supply water to my
farm and energy to my home. I thought it was going to be
benefiting the community: I woul-d be generati-ng power during
peak hours where Idaho Power is saying that they theyrre
telling everyone to conserve energy then. I think we all did
this in good faith, that it was going to benefit everybody.
And the State believes in it: I get a tax
benefit from having had a system. The Federal government
bel-ieves in it: They provided me money f or having instal-Ied
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the system. The only one who seems to
having a system now is Idaho Power.
And I think they just
which side of the fence they're on. If
green expo promoting energy efflciency,
energy efficiency and support those of
not be happy with me
they need to decide
you're going to be at a
be on the side of
us who are wanting that
so many people haveand get j-nto the game. I mean, I think
talked about we know where the future is going. It's not a
mystery. We've got to do something to change our energy
consumption habits and how we're generating energy. And if
Idaho Power rea1Iy wants to position itsel-f as a company that's
concerned about energy efficiency, then jump on board. Other
states are doing it. And we certainl-y have the opportunity
here with sunshine and wind to make a difference and to be a
l-eader instead of being bottom of the pack. And I think with
this kind of rate proposal that's reaIly going to discourage
people from wanting to be energy efficient, that moves us to
the bottom of the pack.
COMM]SSIONER SMITH:Let's see if there are any
questions
EXAMINAT]ON
BY COMMISSIONER SMITH:
just had one
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A. Yes.
O. Does your system generate more than you use or
consume?
A. During the summer months, a littl-e bit, and I get
a credj-t on my bill. During the winter monthsr rro, because of
the farm needs and --
O. Right. okay.
A. Yeah.
O. Thank you.
A. You're welcome.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Harol-d Orien.
HAROLD OR]EN,
appearing as a public witness, being fj-rst duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-lows:
EXAM]NAT]ON
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Would you please state your name and speIl your
Iast name?
A. Harold Orien, O-R-I-E-N.
0. And what is your mai-ling address?
A. 4416 Quail- Ridge Drive, in Boise.
495
OR]EN
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O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I am.
O. And have you previously written testimony or
comments in this case?
A. I have, but I have additional comments tonight.
O. If you would make those, that would be great.
A. Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: I apologize for your name.
THE WITNESS: ft's okay. It's Norwegian not
Irish, but it usually gets pronounced "O'rien."
Commj-ssioners, thank you for the time tonight.
I am a retired businessman. I have four
properties in Southwest fdaho. And with the recent reductj-on
in the cost of installing sofar powers sol-ar power panels,
excuse me, on homes, I've been looking at it as a good
investment for these properties. However, when I talked with
some instal-l-ers here 1ocaI1y and became aware of some increased
fees that are being proposed, I became concerned that it may
not be such a good investment, basically. So, I want to gi-ve
you some numbers tonight that I would be looking at j-n terms of
home sol-ar instal-lation before the fees and after, if that
makes sense, and f rve rounded them just a l-ittl-e bit, they're
not the exact numbers, but just to make the case simpler for
everybody to foll-ow.
In theory, I should be abl-e to, per home, expend
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HEDR]CK COURT
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OR]EN
Public
$10,000, receive some credits so my out-of-pocket expense is
$7,000, and with that, I should be able to reduce my power bill
by about 50 percent, so a $200 average monthly bill should go
down to $100. So again, in theory, under the current fee
structure, I shoul-d be abl-e to save about $L,200 a year, have a
sj-x-year payback, and over a ten-year period of investment have
a seven percent return. That's not bad. I l-ooked at it and
thought, that's pretty good.
If we go with the new fees, fly understanding is
my savings now per year will- only be $800 per month, I'Il- have
a nine-year payback time, and my ten-year return on j-nvestment
is only L.4 percent. Huh, just isn't that exciting anymore. I
think Treasury bil-ls are running around one point five, six, I
don't know.
VOICES: (Laughter. )
THE WfTNESS: And f'm not trying to be funny
about it.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: They have gone up.
THE WITNESS: They have gone up. I just think,
why bother, you know, al-l- of the effort to put it in. I'd just
put my money in Treasury bi11s.
Now, that al-one should be enough incentive to
sdy, Yeah, I don't think these fees are a good idea. They
really wil-I kil-I jobs and kil1 people like me from putting
panels on their properties, both I have a home, a vacation
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home, and f have two rental properties.
But there's something I think thatrs even more
important and concerning to me is that these fees seem, to
me I'm not a power expert, I've never worked for Idaho Power
or really done much j-n terms of investigating it but they
seem a Iittle bit arbitrary, because if I were to taker sdyr
that same money and put it into better insulation, maybe
improved take off a roof and put on a roof and stuff and
then reduce my power bill by 50 percent that wdy, Idaho Power
woul-dn't be charging me to do that, would they? So it seems
l-ike they're kind of focused on just this method of saving
power, and that seems to be, again, arbitrary. And it concerns
me because in the future then if I were to j-nstall this, would
we have some arbitrary and capricious rate hikes in the future
that are targeted at me because I choose to do it this way? So
it concerns me, as a buslnessman, that I don't think I'd want
to put my money out there.
So I do appreciate your ti-me. I think there's
only one and I've already mentioned 1n my written comments
so I won't reiterate them, but I think there's a l-ot of jobs at
stake too for people that woul-d be servicing my homes to put on
panels, and thls I think will have an impact on them. I think
it wil-l hurt that industry.
So, again, I think there j-s just one good choice
for our economy in Idaho, and Southwest Idaho especially where
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therers a lot more sun, and also just for energy choice for
people like myself, and that is to relect the fees and flnd
some win-win maybe that would be good for both fdaho Power and
consumers to make home solar a real1y good thing.
Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you for your comments.
Letrs see if there are questions.
No questions. Thank you very much. V[e
appreciate your time.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMfSSIONER SMITH: Kenneth,.Jensen.
KENNETH JENSEN,
appearing as a public wj-tness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-1ows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
0. Hi.
A. Hel1o.
O. Could you please state your name and speI1 your
l-ast name for the record?
A. Kenneth Jensen, ,J-E-N-S-E-N.
A. And what is your mailing address?
499
.JENSEN
PubIic
A. 2436 Eleventh Avenue East, Vale, Oregon, 979L8.
0. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. Yes, $100r 000-a-year customer.
O. Have you previously submitted written comments or
testimony in this case?
A. Yes, I have.
O. So if you have your statement, go ahead and make
it and add new information.
A. Yes.
THE WITNESS: This, f'm here to come about from
being at the workshop that was here in May. I am a large
irrigator, produce farms, and f currently have a few pilot
programs where I have sofar panels on the farm, and I had some
questions about the program for irrigators.
The net meteri-ng program is broke down in
different categories, different rate structures: Some for
residentlal, some for sma1l commercial, and there's irrigation
class. And there's a number of concerns. Therers three
actually three concerns that I have as well as the Oregon
Irrigators Pumpers Association, Inc., that I am a board member
of. It's a group that got together to irrigators that
are -- we fight rate increases that come on irrigation, find
out what we can do to reduce our demands, and so forth. So, I
came to the workshop, I had some questions regarding to some of
the limits specifically to the irri-gation program, and the
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Commj-ssion here sugqested that I write these down, so I got
together with the Irrigation Pumpers Association and we came up
with three reconrmendations that we have on this net metering
program.
The first concern that we have has to do with the
change that Idaho Power is proposing to have a yearly cycle to
December 31. With an lrrigation season, putting sol-ar panels
in irrigation pump, when the irrigation season is over we don't
use any power during the winter, and December 31 deadline, w€
woul-d lose al-1 our generation in October, November, December,
so that will be a huge l-oss. So if there is going to be an
arbj-trary date cycle, each irrigator needs to be able to pick
that date.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: And were you aware that the
Company actually made that proposal, that each customer pick
their own 12 months?
THE WITNESS: No, I had not I had not seen
that update.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Yeah, they I think fil-ed
that with their rebuttal.
MS. NORDSTROM: Correct.
THE WITNESS: Okay. I hadn't read the rebuttal-s.
I read some of the other arguments, but I hadn't read that.
So, okay, that's good to hear.
AIso, if there is a yearly date, because of
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
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irrigation l-oads, depending upon the year sometimes we have
wet years, sometimes we have dry years,' three years ago we had
extremefy wet year, we didn't turn our pumps on until- June,
this year they were on in March our l-oads vary. So trying
to size a solar system to match that at three years, being abl,e
to carry excess generatj-on j-f we do have a wet year for the
three years would all-ow for if there is a hot, dry year, to be
able to use our own energy back up without losing that. So
just a yearly cycIe, there's quite a bit of variability in
irrigation loads.
The second concern we have is not actually a part
of the proposal of Idaho Power to change, it's part of their
original net metering program where there's a 100 ki1owatt
limit. One hundred kilowatts seems l-ike a Iot, but 100
kil-owatt solar array will only generate enough power to run one
4O-horsepower irrigation motor for the irrigatj-on season. A
lot of farmers have 100 horse, 400 horse, 500 horse motors that
they're needing a bigger system. They're needing half megawatt
systems, one megawatts systems if they wj-sh to even get close
to producing a substantial share of their power. So, the
Oregon Irrigation Pumpers Association is suggesting that there
be no l-imit other than the fact that the threat of losing
excess generation on a three-year cycle would be the threat to
not put in an oversj-zed system.
When I was here at the hearing, I asked
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Scott Gates Scott Gates from Idaho Power, net metering 9uy,
said that l-00 k was just kind of an arbitrary number. ff we
need an arbitrary number, why not a megawatt? That's a nice,
simple number too. So, you know, thatrs in l-ine with a 1ot of
irrigation pumpers.
And the other one is the second meter required.
Having to have a generation meter as wel-l- as a usage meter for
the irrigator if he wants to do net metering adds cost to
everybody. If we're putting a system in, you have to pay the
cost of instal-l-ing a second meter. You're going to get a
second meter monthly charge. Idaho Power has to deal- with a
second meter, they have to provide that.
And the worst problem is the bi1ling. They only
have to take and do additlon and subtraction. You'd think
that'd be pretty simple. I currently have several- two-meter
solar systems out there, and I think I get four or five errors
a year where I have to sj-t on the phone and figure out the
problem. lt woul-d be a l-ot simpler if it's one meter.
So by having two meters sometimes it miqht
require additional wire and distances being done if the pump is
not exactly right at the meter. Sometimes you want to put the
sol-ar panels where the pump is so you reduce transmission
losses. If you required a second meter, you'd have to string
another who1e set of cables, which is often quarter mil-e or
hal-f a mil-e or so forth. So by having one meter, you coul-d
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eliminate some costs of wire as wel-I as some transmission
losses internally to the farmer.
So, that's al-l- the comments that I have. There's
a lot of us farmers out here who woul-d l-ike to be more
sustainable, produce more of our power, reduce our carbon
footprint, and provide food for everybody, so werd -- and the
economics are there that we can start to put solar up. We have
the l-and to be abl-e to do that. The corners, dead ground
that' s not being used, sol-ar panels would f it nj-cely on it.
And that's my testimony.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: And we thank you very much,
Mr. Jensen
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (Applause. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: -- for your thoughtful
comments and for coordj-nating with your colJ-eagues in order to
give us these suggestions.
THE WITNESS: I have a written copy, if the
Commj-ssioners would like a written copy.
COMMISSIONER SMfTH: That would be perfect, if
you give it to the court reporter.
I guess I neglected to mention at the beginning
that we have a court reporter here, because we have a
transcript and our Decj-sion must be based upon the record that
is created through our hearing process in case the Supreme
Court has to review it.
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Anyway, thank you very much for your time.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Bill- Roberson (phonetic).
BILL ROBISON,
appearing as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-l-ows:
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Robison.
THE WITNESS: Yes, thank you. Very wel-l-. Not
ttRobinson. tt
EXAMINAT]ON
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Woul-d you please state your name and spe1I your
last name for the record?
A. Bill Robison, R-O-B-I-S-O-N.
O. What is your mailing address?
A. 2165 Springwood Drive, Meridian.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. f am.
O. Have you previously submitted written testimony
or comments in this case?
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A. I have.
a. So if you wil-l- go ahead and make your statement,
Iimiting it to new informati-on, that would be great.
A. Okay. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: First of all, f want to thank you
for hearing us today, and I appreciate al-l of the work that you
do on Idahors behalf. My testimony comes after I already
submitted comments and I wil-l- not cross over on those.
I have been j-nterested in PV as a regeneratj-ve
means for many years, and so three years ago when we had --
when the time seemed right because of pricing of some
components, we instal-Ied 10.8 ki1owatt system consisting of
48 sol-ar panels on our home's south-facj-ng roof structures. We
did this to generate electrical- power to provide and to
provide some shade, both of which reduce our electrical needs
from fdaho Power Company.
We have always tried to control and reduce our
Idaho Power electrical- bills as much as we can by using
avail-abIe means such as insulation, more efficient appJ-iances,
as well- as heat pumps and so forth. Our home is an
all-electric home, incidentally. We became involved with net
metering as another tool to control costs, and by doing so we
invested 36,000 over $36,000 that's a net cost lnto
fdaho's el-ectrical system. Our investment has successfully
reduced our yearly average Idaho Power el-ectrical- consumption
506
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from something over 20,000 kilowatt hours to about 5,000
kilowatt hours based on averages from the past three years.
Our yearly production of something on the order of 161 000
kilowatt hours results in credits worth approximately $1,100.
The new proposal would cost, according to the
estimate from Idaho Power, approximately $339, and that $339
compared to the 7,L49 credit that we get is a significant loss
of control-.
So, we now have significant control over our
power costs but it takes a lot of years to recoup that
investment, and I think that some of the times for investment
and problems therein have been mentioned. Under my -- Idaho
or r the proposal -- my original investment estimated about a
15-year break-even point; and with the new proposal, that time
would probably stretch in around 20 years. For somebody that's
in the retlrement part of the senior citizen group and there
are others of us here in the audience here tonight, the same
situatlon we need a better opportunity to recoup that
investment rather than IPC- IPC-E-72-21. So, we have a net
metering tool, it is a good too1, and we thank both Idaho Power
and the PUC for making that available,'but we need your help to
improve it, not to diminish it for our use, and we need that
heJ-p to use it to pay for our investment.
And something on the order of Mr. Burkholder
mentioned that I would just throw out as a possibility was
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somethj-ng like a bonus for peak demand wou1d he1p, and that's
again allaying the cost that Idaho Power has to pay for that
summertime energy is when we're developing at our peak.
Thank you f or your t j-me.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you very much. Let's
see if there are questions.
COMMISSIONER REDEORD: No.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you.
THE WITNESS: You're welcome.
(The wi-tness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Barbara Loeding.
BARBARA LOEDING,
appearing as a public witness, being fj-rst duly sworn, was
examlned and testif ied as fol-l-ows:
EXAM]NAT]ON
BY MR. KLEIN:
a. Good evening.
A. Good evening.
O. Wou1d you please state your name and speII your
last name for the record?
A. Sure. Barbara Loeding, L-O-E-D-I-N-G.
O. What is your mailing address?
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A. 10640 Col-umbia Road in Bolse.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. My husband is, so I guess I am. I just recently
got married, so
O. Have you previously submitted testimony or
comments in this case?
A. No, f havenft.
O. Please go ahead and make your statement.
A. Okay.
THE WITNESS: I only recently heard about the
hearing last nightr so I apologJ-ze, I haven't had as much tlme
to immerse myself in the Web sj-te and the documents as others,
but I knew that I had to come to the hearing today and to
Ij-sten and learn and share my views, because I speak as a
potential net metering customer for Idaho.
Being from Fl-orida, somehow I recently married
one of your f inest f rom Boise. And my son and I have a smal-l-
aquaponics farm in Fl-orlda where I put a solar PV system on
that farm because I care deeply about the environment and f'm
trying to be a good steward, as other people have mentioned. I
applied for a grant from the USDA to help run our farm using a
6.4 kilowatt system, and they awarded us the very fj-rst USDA
grant f or a sol-ar system in El-orj-da. We're part of the
Mill-ion -- Mill-ion Sol-ar Roof j-nitiative. And we have a good
net metering agreement where we get ful1 retail- value and none
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of these fees that peopJ-e are talking about; although we do
have to give our credits back at the end of the year if we
generate more than we use, but that doesn't happen in our case
because we our system supplies about a third of our energy
needs.
So, naturally, now that I'm l-iving here in Idaho,
I brought that phllosophy with me. I wanted to add sol-ar to
our house in Boise to reduce our carbon footprint and be part
of the solution, but I have to say that after listening very
intently today, I'm reafly not at afl sure that I wil-l- proceed
unless the Commission denies some of those onerous proposals
that I've heard about.
The gentleman from Idaho Power kept saying that
the proposals were not meant to discourage renewable energy
production, but it doesn't seem, to me I agree with some of
the other speakers: It doesn't seem, to me, that it would be a
good return on my lnvestment here j-n Idaho.
And I wanted to share a quote before I closed
from my faith: The betterment of the world can be the
betterment of the worl-d is due to pure and goodly deeds,
commendable and seemingly conduct.
So, I urge you, as trustees of our public
utilities, to act in a pure and objective and commendabl-e wdy,
and protect the rights of the homeowners to choose these
alternatJ-ve ways to generate el-ectricity to be part of the
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sol-utj-on, and act in a way that encourages the increase of
those renewable power sources. These proposals did not seem
neutra] to me.
Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, and I appreciate
hearing of your Fl-orida experience.
fs there any questions?
THE WITNESS: Oh, can I add one more teeny point?
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Certainly.
THE WITNESS: I was listening to one of the
people that said that Idaho Power coufdn't seem to figure out
a way to do time of use with the net metering. Florida has
figured that out, so maybe Idaho Power could talk to Florida.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: f've been you know, I've
been doing utility work since 1981, and it's been my experience
over these years that utility billing systems are rarely
capable of doing what you reaI1y want them to. Anyway, it's an
ongoing problem.
Thank you for your comments.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: We have Mike Medberry who
will- testify here, and then we'll go to the people on the
telephone.
Mike I think I'm saying it correctly --
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Medberry?
MR. MEDBERRY: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you.
MIKE MEDBERRY,
appeari-ng as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-lows:
EXAM]NATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Hi. Can you please state your name and spe1l
your last name for the record?
A. ft's Mike Medberry, M-E-D-B-E-R-R-Y.
O. And what is your mailing address?
A. It's 2209 Heron Street in Boise.
O. And are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I guess I am, yes.
O. Have you previously submitted written comments or
testimony in this case?
A. Irm embarrassed, but I haven't.
O. Please go ahead and make your statement.
A. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: Thank you, Commissioners, for the
opportunity to comment on Idaho Power's proposed modification
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to the net metering service I have installed roughly 650
ki-l-owatts of solar electric panels in New Mexj-co, CaLifornia,
and Idaho; built and sold three passive sol-ar homes; and have
seen the price of electric panels drop to about $f per watt.
The projected decrease in the price of sol-ar el-ectric panels is
absolutely mind-boggling.
I had a smal-l sol-ar busj-ness for five years in
McCal-l- at which I designed systems, purchased supplj-es, hired
el-ectriclans and plumbers, install-ed and maintained sofar
thermal and electric systems. I was a member of the Office of
Energy Resources task force, which wrote a legi-slative report
on renewabl-e energy. And f went out of buslness l-ast year, but
I still- retaln my business and I hope that sometime it wil-I
again be vj-able and I will have a prof itabl-e business.
I think the key to operatj-ng a viable sol-ar
business is the price of electricity, and in Idaho it remains
pretty low. So1ar water heating is now viabl-e with a roughly
five year. Solar el-ectrj-c is not reaIIy currently economically
vj-able in Idaho, but in California and elsewhere it is closer,
where the price of electricity is much higher and there are
substantial subsidies.
In Idaho, solar energy reaI1y is part of the
sol-ution,' however however, excuse me, there are many complex
factors in raising the viabil-ity of solar electric systems:
Number one, as I sald, is the price of
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HEDRICK COURT REPORT]NG
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electricity, which is sure to rise.
Second is the price of panels, inverters, and
rel-ated equipment. Favorabl-e trade with China and other
countries has made it certain that we will continue to have
significant competition from overseas producers. The Internet
is a great equalizer, but should we tax all the products
purchased there? Probably, as I would hope domestic businesses
survive.
Third is the way 1n which the util-ities deal with
electricity: Are they hostil-e or supportive on renewabl-e
energy? fs PURPA going to be challenged and al-I subsidies cut?
Probably not.
Fourth is the price of labor and the quality of
material-s, things like can one person instal-l- ten 200-watt
panels in one day with one helper. That really is a key thing
that I have to work on. How many people are going to going
to have to be there to install the panels.
Here tonight we are only dealj-ng with one
variable: The policies of Idaho Power Company. IPC has been
nibbling like a swarm of piranhas in dealing with my ability to
operate economically. Idaho Power Company has proposed to add
costs here and there, hither and yon, bit by bit by bit, to
make my business more expensive and theirs more profitable.
True, this is only one piece of business survlval, but it is on
the vanj-shing edge, on the increment of continuj-ng to operate.
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But I guess they have their corporate reasons for making this
process. What Idaho Power Company says and what the effects of
these proposals may be may seem a l-ittle like incidental- costs,
but they wil-l- cause more consternatj-on than good. It wil-l only
take a smal-l- amount of costs to crush an industry.
The Public Utilities Commission and their Staff
response is better than the IPC proposal. Gj-ven the uncertaln
outcome of the prices paj-d by IPC for power generated by the
sun, the regulatory climate in Idaho and please note that
Hoku, the company that was selling sllicon in Pocatello, has
just gone be11y up and the competition in buying materials
and labor, given these things, why would anyone want to come to
fdaho to util-ize the sun?
I ask the Commission to please gi-ve me some
certainty about what 1s going to happen. This is a great sunny
cl-imate. Perhaps we should be content burning coal and running
dams, but I think not. And you can imagine why we shoul-dnrt.
I hope that we will contj-nue to foster sofar
bus j-nesses and do it with unrelent j-ng fairness. Without a
supportive PUC on the side of people who have no other voi-ce,
a1l- that sunshine wiLl do us is give us a suntan. That's a
nice thing, but please give us your support.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Okay, thank you. Let's see
if there are quest j-ons.
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No questions. Thank you very much for your
comments.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: We'l-f now turn to those
wishing to testify who are on the telephone, Mr. Eadness.
MR. GENE FADNESS: Thank you, Commissioner. We
have four people in l-ine to testify. There are several others
on the participant 1ist, and I woul-d just remind them that if
they want to get in the line to testify, to press star one on
your telephone.
So we'11- take the first one now.
RECORDED VOICE: Participant line unmuted.
DOUG BUELL,
appearing telephonj-ca11y as a public witness, was examined and
testi-f ied as f ollows:
THE WITNESS: Okay, my name is Doug Buell-. I
live in Jerome, Idaho, 418 West 215 South.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: And, Dougr we need you to
spe1l your l-ast name, please.
THE WITNESS: Sure. It's B for boy, U for
unj-form, E for elephant, L-L two Ls.
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EXAM]NATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. And this is Karl Klein, the attorney for the
Commissi-on Staff. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I am.
O. And have you previously submitted a written
comment or testimony in this case?
A. No, I have not.
O. Okay. Go ahead, make your statement.
A. First of all-, I'd like to thank everybody for the
time
O. Pardon me. Could you restate your address?
A. 418 West 275 South, Jerome J-E-R-O-M-E
fdaho.
O. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: I'd like to thank the Commission
for having this evening meeting. I have been out of state
during this process, so I apologj-ze for not submitting written
comments. I got home about six o'clock this mornj-ng and have
spent my day trying to sift through the hundreds of pages of
documents to try and make sense of this. So, bear with me if
I'm not as prepared as I would like to be.
My wife and I purchased our home here in Jerome
in the fall of 2009 it was a foreclosure and at that
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time, Idaho Power did not have any records of the electric
bills for this home because it had not been occupied for two
years. So, w€ don't normally make buying decisj-ons like that,
that's not our business modus operandir so we were goj-ng in a
little bit blind. We had never owned a home before that was
al-l- el-ectric heat wj-th no access to natural 9ds, so we were a
littl-e bit bowled over when we had our first chil-d in late
October and keeping the house a littIe warmer for an infant,
our bill that January and February came j-n at $550. We do not
own a large house and we were putting my wife through nursing
school at the timer so that bill was pretty crippling for us
and certainly got our attention.
My career history is f worked for water
departments both as a supervisor and consultant project
manager. We currentl-y have excuse me as I jump around here
a little bit we have ten sol-ar panels on our rooftop now.
We spent a great deal- of time. The market was not doing that
wel-I, so we took some of our investment money and put into new
windows, window coverings, we have a solar panel array,
insul-ation.
And f think what bothers me about Idaho Power's
current proposal is Idaho Power has no problem writing partial
checks for easy upgrades, both for residential for peop1e who
want to put more insul-ation in a roof. They wil-l- pay them -- I
believe, and I may be wrong on this -- but at the time it
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seemed like 30 cents a square foot to insulate their roof. Or
there was another easy upgrade for a newer furnace system,
things l-ike that. So they will pay for those programs, but
those of us that have spent big money in sol-ar array systems
with no help are now bej-ng asked to pay more.
I am not really a subscriber to the whole
environmental- movement, but f am a subscri-ber to sound
business. And the gentleman that testified earlier about his
payback, when I ran my payback under Idaho Powerrs new
proposals, I don't have as many panels as he was talking about,
I donrt have as many homes or as many power bills, so my
payback was actually going to be 1ower, about . B percent over
ten years.
So I have taken a big risk with Idaho Power and
now the rules are changing, and it feels kind of like a gotcha
game. You know, I've been to severa1 public events where
Scott Gates, the net metering fdaho representative, has come
and provi-ded a trail-er that Idaho Power has put together with a
sofar panel array and a demonstration on how solar works, and
then they usually provide the el-ectrj-city to power up the PA
system -- the public address system. And so in one hand,
they're out there al-most promoting sol-ar and encouraging people
to go sofar with their demonstration at these public functions;
but on the other hand, it feels like they're gouging us.
As a project manager for some of these cj-ties, I
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have worked with Idaho Power. Idaho Power's paid 70 percent of
the cost of easy upgrades for lighting, for things like that,
that on the other hand we're expected to pay. It just seems
like, bej-ng a project manager and having worked with Idaho
Power on public right-of-way projects where we were working
with water, sewer, and electricity, f've seen Idaho Power waste
more than $100,000 even in a residential area, where here
they're trying to get 83 to $1001000 out of a few solar panel
customers, it just it seems l-ike there's a lot of other
areas where Idaho Power coul-d address 1n their daily
operatJ-ons.
And going back to f was reading in the report
and I apologize, I was not able to open the rebutta1 today
online on PUC's Web slte. f was abl-e to open all of the other
documents but not the rebuttal.
But as far as the distribution system, when we do
a rate study for a water department, one of the things the
water department and the entire rate base and the heating is
fire suppression water. Water departments have to put in these
massive fire pumps, all of the distribution lj-nes, usually
separate distribution l-ines for big businesses and things l-ike
that. There's no fear of cost recovery for water departments.
And when I compare a public utility such as a water department
that I have spent several years consul-tj-ng with to the
operations of Idaho Power, many of our water companies in Idaho
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are driving ten- and 15- and 2O-year o1d pickups, and Idaho
Power is runnJ-ng around in new pickups. There lust seems to be
a big difference between Idaho Power and some of the other
smal-I, publicly-owned utilities as far as operation.
And to be ni-ckel--and-diming 1j-ttIe solar people,
I mean, my total array j-s a two ki-l-owatt system; it's not very
biq. At this point, I don't have a credit, but in the future
we have -- we're planning on buildi-ng a garage and we've
already spent money with an architect to maximize the layout of
the roofline for future solar panels. We put that entire
project on hold because we don't the instability
We have a monopoly that the PUC control-s but they
get to change the rules midstream on us, and it totally changes
our investment future. And if this is something Idaho Power
really thinks they need to do, I think there needs to be a lot
longer ti-me frame, a lot longer l-ook into the future on Idaho
Power's part as to a plan on how to give us enough time to
adj ust .
Things l-ike this, a l-ot of us, this was our l-ife
savings to cut down on our bilI, because it was either pay the
power bill and not have my wife go to school-, or do something
drastic to keep her in school-. And so for us, this wasn't
spare money. V[e had to do something. We don't have natural
gas. We don't have an alternati-ve energy source as far as
putting the furnace on natural 9as, putting the heat system on
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natural gas. We're tied to the monopoly of Idaho Power whether
we want to or not and our only option is to sell- the house and
go to something else, and that's not somethi-ng that a lot of
people can do, especially in thls economy.
So when you compare I guess my point is
compared to the easy upgrade system, I don't understand what
Idaho Power's philosophy is. Everytime f've talked to Idaho
Power they justify the easy upgrade system by saying, WelI, if
we save this much power across the across the grid, that we
don't have to buil-d an additional power plant and so it saves
us a hundred billion dol-Iars. And I quote I've heard that
quote from several- of Idaho Power employees that it saves us
building a $100 bil-lion power plant.
Wel-l-, rf it saves you a $100 bil-l-lon power plant
and they can afford upgrades both on commercial- and residential-
but they can't afford to keep 83 to $100,000 on something that
they haven't had to pay for, I am confused.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mister
THE WITNESS: I have one other
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Okay.
THE WITNESS: f was going to comment on the
you know what? I'm not in the market to try and make money off
of Idaho Power, that's not my purpose, so I'm okay with the
credit. I'm not interested in a check, but I am interested in
having some control over controfl-ing my bil-ls, and this is
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one.
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of those ways that I get to control it with a little bit of
investment; but the way theyrre changing the ru1es, I will not
be able to afford to add any more solar.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Buell-.
Let's see if there are any questi-ons for you.
Do we have any questions? Nor w€ don't. I
apprecj-ate your thoughtful comments and participating tonight.
Thank you.
(The witness was excused. )
RECORDED VOICE: Participant l-ine unmuted.
MS. REYNOLDS: Al-l- right. Can you hear me?
COMMf SSIONER SMITH: Yes. Mr. Kl-ej-n will ask you
a few questions to get you started.
LAURA REYNOLDS,
appearing telephonically as a publi-c witness, was examined and
testified as follows:
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Hi. Would you please state your name and spel1
your last name for the record?
A. Hi. My name is Laura Reynolds, and the l-ast name
is R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-S.
O. What is your mailing address?
A. Rural- Route 2, Box 83C, Pocatello, Idaho, 83-
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O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. Yes, f am.
A. And have you previously submitted wrj-tten
testimony or comments in this case?
A. No.
O. Please go ahead and make your statement.
THE WITNESS: I recently bought a new car.f t's
a Chevy Volt. Itrs a wonderful car I and we love it. And we
built a little nest for it in the garage where it can suck up
its power, but we would l-ike to put up a photovol-taic system on
our farm so that we can make power to power up the car.
Anyway, just this very day, thls very afternoon, f was out
mowing the grass 1n the place where the "you dig" guys are
going to come so we can determine where to put the poles for
this solar power array, and we're quite excited about putting
this system together, but obviousl-y we are very concerned about
the Decision that the Utility Commissj-on is going to make.
The up side of this system is that we're
expecting this photovoltaic system will mitigate for the power
that the car is taking. This is a new kind of power use for
electricity, it's, you know, previously been taken by oi1 and
9ds, so making transportation fuel out of electricity is a new
use. But if we didn't have net metering and we tried to charge
up our car with the sol-ar panels, that wou1dn't work very well-
because the car is at work j-n the daytime. It's parked in the
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Publ-i-c
garage at night when it needs its power. So our plan is to put
up panels. The panels will- feed into the grid, and we would
want to charge our car, we'l-l- get the power out of it. Anyway,
we're very excited about this, but you can i-magine the chilling
effect of the change in the ruIes. Pretty soon j-t's bye-bye
Mr. Sol-ar Panel Installer, we're not going to use your services
after al-l-.
And, you know, I want to polnt out the up side is
if the rul-es are beneficial to photovol-taic customers, it
creates a vibrant economy of 1ts own. It creates jobs j-n terms
of install-ing panels, making systems, even research and
deveJ-opment on new systems, and even a data pool of how wel-l
these type of systems are working at various points around the
state. So it's a it's a reaIly beneficial, positive type of
economy. But to take that away, thatrs a chilling effect to
say that we just have to take what kind of power we can get and
just suck it up and do what we are to1d. That's a very
negative approach to take.
So I just wanted to point that out, and I think
I'm done now.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: We appreclate your comments,
Mrs. Reynolds. Let's see if there are any questions for you.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: NO.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: No. None from here. And I
wish you l-uck and enjoy your new car.
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HEDRICK COURT
P. O. BOX 578,
REPORTING
BOTSE, rD
EITZSIMMONSPublic
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
(The witness was excused. )
RECORDED VOICE: Participant l-ine unmuted.
MR. FITZSIMMONS: Hel1o.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Yes. We have -- Mr. K1ein
will ask you a few questions to get you started.
MR. FITZSIMMONS: Okay.
PETER EITZSIMMONS,
appearing telephonically as a public witness, was examined and
testif ied as fol-l-ows:
EXAMINATTON
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Would you please state your name and spel1 your
last name for the record?
A. Peter Fitzsimmons, F-I-T-Z-S-I-M-M-O-N-S.
O. What's your mailing address?
A. 21,00 Northeast Wapiti Lane, Mountain Home, fdaho,
83647 . Wapiti is W-A-P-I-T-I. Wapiti Lane.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I am.
O. And have you previously submitted written
comments or testimony in this case?
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
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A. f have not.
O. Please go ahead and make your statement.
A. Okay.
THE WITNESS: I just wanted to thank the
Commj-ssioners for the opportunity to speak tonight, especially
it's very convenient to be able to just call in for this.
We built our house out here in about 2007, being
very conscious about trying to save energy as best we can.
Designed it j-nto the higher insul-ation standards, put the
investment in for a geothermal heat pump. Tn effect, it is a
100 percent el-ectric house, knowing that further down the road
we were going to do some addj-tional- things to help us out as
far as being energy conscious for this. What we did, we put in
one of these smal-l- wind turbj-nes, and then followed that up
with a l-lttl-e over four kilowatts worth of dual- tracking sol-ar
arrays which actually take care of the bul-k of our energy.
Over the course of the last yearr we managed to manufacture or
whatever you want to cal-l it approximately 75 to B0 percent of
our total- usage for the year from renewabfe sources.
I want to thank Idaho Power for the way the net
metering program has been structured up to this point. A
couple of the people have mentioned Scott Gates. Scott Gates
was exceptional throughout all- of the instal-Is we did, so a big
thank you to him.
Eor our own purposesr w€ dj-dn't really do this
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obviously, we understand that energy here in Idaho is probably
one of the l-east expensive places across the United Statesr so
from the fiscal- payback, that wasn't rea11y the point.
I w1l-l- l-eave the climate debate to the folks that
are much more wel,l- versed in that than f am.
We reaIly only looked at it more from the energy
security standpoint. The less we're using renewabl-e energy
that we are paying for from governments that may not be ones
that we really want to be friends with, the less we pay them,
the more we keep Ioca11y, we thought we would be better off.
f find it somewhat i-ronic if we track some of the
news releases we've seen from Idaho Power over the last few
months. We know that they just got a rate increase. We know
that they are predicting l-ow f1ows, especially this yearr ds
far as being abl-e to produce hydroelectric. I believe another
recent news articl-e discussed some of the coal-fired power
plants: They are paying to actually have coal--fired power
plants that are actually out of state upgraded to meet
standards. We note that the Gateway West transmission l-ine 1s
under work to meet the future proposed energy demands of the
region.
Yet whil-e they're doing al-l of these same things,
they seem to be wanting to penallze those of us that are
actually trying to do the right thing on the l-ocal and the
small-er scale. What is in effect happening here is with
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
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Public
Gateway West and some of the other types of things where we're
trying to get energy to meet peak demand, j-n our case, our
sol-ar is helping meet that peak demand because obvj-ousl-y the
hottest part of the year is when it's providing most of its
power. We are helping to power some of the houses just right
next door to us. You know, I really doubt our excess power
makes it more than one, two, three houses away. So instead of
having to pu11 power from those coal--fired power plants, longer
distances, long haulr w€ are actually provj-ding an efficiency
here that allows them to not have to pull it over those long
haul-s, and yet at the same tlme we are being penalized for
that.
As I discussed earlier, we produce about 15, B0
percent of our power throughout the year. The carryover won't
affect us. For the other fofks, you know, I think it would go
on that as aIl-owed carryover to continue. Whether they get
paid out, we don't have a dog in that fight, ds they would say.
So each one of those things that we see from
Idaho Power seems to be in direct conflict with al-l- of our
goals and what we're tryj-ng to do with renewable energy.
And the l-ast point that I want to bring up, and
we talked about another gentleman discussed some of the
public rel-ations that Idaho Power has presented as far as
renewable energy and varj-ous and sundry: Back when I first got
the notification of the proposed changes to what they wanted to
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do with net metering agreements and such, probably wlthin two
weeks of that, our next Idaho Power biII arrived. The
Connecti-ons magazine is dated March 2013. If you l-ook in the
front of that, the lead story happens to be Idaho Power marking
a decade of solar for our schools, tel1ing us about the grants
and the education that they provide for, you know, discussing
within our school- system the benefits of solar power, renewable
energy, each one of those types of things; while at the same
time trying to penalize those of us that are trying to reach
those goals.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: So does that conclude your
statement?
THE WITNESS: That does.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Al-l- right. Let's see if
there are any quest j-ons.
COMMISSIONER REDEORD: No.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: A11 right, and there are
none, so we appreciate your participatj-on tonight. Thank you.
THE VIITNESS: Okay, thank you.
(The witness was excused. )
RECORDED VOICE: Participant line unmuted.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORT]NG
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
ROWNTREE
Public
WALTER ROWNTREE,
appearing telephonically as a public witness, was examined and
testif ied as fol-l-ows:
THE WITNESS: Hi. My name is Wal-ter Rowntree,
R-O-W-N-T-R-E-E. f live at Rural- Route 2, Box B3C, Pocatello,
Idaho. I'm an Idaho Power Company customer both at home and my
business, and I have not made any comments in this matter,
wrj-tten or otherwi-se, prevj-ousIy.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Rowntree.
P1ease proceed.
THE WITNESS: Wel-l, it looks like I get to be the
l-ast commenter. That's got some reaf advantages, I get the
last word, but some disadvantages too in that a lot of my
comments were already made by previous people, including my
wj-fe, who's sitting right next to me.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Mr. Rowntree, there are ten
more people signed up herer sor oo, you're not 1ast.
THE WITNESS: Oh, excellent. Okay. Well, I'l-L
pretend it's the last word anyway.
About a month ago, I attended a presentation in
town here by Reed Burkhol-der where he described his net
meteri-ng system at his resj-dence and how it works, and this was
very exciting because f put pencil to paper and it looked like
things pencj-1ed out real wel-l for my business. And I decj-ded
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REPORTING
BO]SE, ID
ROWNTREE
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to put up 12,000 watts of photovol-taics out there, which would
provide about 25 percent of the total- energy that my business
uses. And then I looked into the matter a littl-e further and
found out that the rules for net metering for residences and
small- business were different than those for large commerciaf
instal-lations, which I am one af, and when I put the pencil to
the rules that apply to large commercj-aI, I found that it did
not pencil out. It's a real- disappointment to me.
So I decided to put some panels in at home so I
cou1d take advantage of the residential- rules, and then when I
looked into that a l-ittle more, I found out that Idaho Power
Company had what it's requesting f rom the Commiss j-on rul-e
changes that make residential and small business rules for net
metering a l-ittl-e more l-ike the large commercj-al. And we have
decided, although we're doing some preliminary work, we've
decided to wait and see what the Publ-ic Utility Commlssion
decides before we rea11y commit to actually putting the panels
in or not.
So this is a real-wor1d, real-time example of
someone -- me who had decided to put in photovol-taics based
on the oId rules but who will decj-de not to put those
photovoltaics in if the new rul-es are adopted. The people at
the PUC need to ask themselves is do we want to have rul-es in
place and policies that encourage people to put in smal-I
generation, or if they want to discourage people from putting
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HEDRICK COURT
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ROWNTREE
Publ-ic
in smal-l- generation.
And I think if we l-ook at the big picture, the
more smal-l generation that is put in p1ace, especially
photovoltaics that produce the power during peak demand times,
then the longer it will- put off the day when Idaho Power
requests from the Publ-ic Utility Commj-ssion a new natural gas
generation plant. And you can bet that when they decide that,
based on peak demand, they need to build a new power plant, You
can bet that they're going to be asking for a rate increase to
cover those costs. So, you know, as fat as the help for what's
best for the people of Idaho, it 1s clearly best to put off the
day when they have to when they will request a new power
p1ant.
I'd l-ike to remind the Commi-ssion that not in my
plans for the business and the house, not neither plan was
to produce more power than we would use. We wil-l- def initely be
above net zero. And in looking at some of the other comments,
the numbers, the number of net meters out there now who are
being net zero 1s l-ess than ten percent of the total. You
realIy have to be kind of a fanatic to want to go that far in
it. And that seems to be Idaho Powerrs biggest worries is that
if these net zero people out there, and I just I just
don't f think 90 percent of us are not going to be that way.
Anyway, I would l-ike to very much thank the
Commission for letting me make these comments, and I would ask
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HEDR]CK COURT REPORTING
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ROWNTREE
Publ-ic
you to please l-ook towards the future.
Those are the end of my comments.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you very much. Let's
see if there are questions.
I see no questions. We appreciate your
participatj-on tonight.
(The witness was excused. )
MR. GENE FADNESS: He is the last cal-Ier. We
still- have nj-ne people listening in, and so you can maybe go to
your other people and I'11- just remind them to hit star one if
they want to get in the l-ine to testify.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: What we're going to do right
now, because I rea11y need a break, is we're going to take a
ten-minute break, and I think our court reporter probably needs
a break too.
There are ten more people on the l-ist. f notice
some family duplications. And I always hate to impose time
limits on folks because I want to hear what they have to say
if they made the effort to get here, it's probably pretty
important and I should listen -- but I woul-d ask you to think
about being as succinct as you coul-d be.
So we will take a break for ten minutes.
(Recess. )
COMMISSIONER SMfTH: Okay, we'11 go back on the
record now, and our next witness will be Mary McGown.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOISE, fD
McGOWN
Publ-ic
MARY McGOWN,
appearing as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-l-ows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLE]N:
A. Good evening.
TELEPHONIC VOICES: (Inaudible. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: And, Do, therers no pudding
here either.
O. BY MR. KLEIN: Would you please state your ful-1
name and spell your last name for the record?
A. My name is Mary McGown, M-C, capital G-O-W-N.
0. What is your mailing address?
A. 282 South Mobley Lane, Boise.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. Yes.
O. And have you previously submitted written
testimony or comments in this case?
A. No.
O. Please go ahead with your statement.
THE WITNESS: Ditto. Actually, that's kind of
what I feel like saying, because reaI1y a l-ot of these points
are the same.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 518, BOTSE, rD
McGOWN
Public
I'm representing the League of Women Voters of
Idaho tonight, and the League of Women Voters of Idaho opposes
the changes that Idaho Power is proposing in its net metering
program. The League takes positions it has studied and on
which its members have reached consensus. In part, the energy
position supports energy conservation and development of
renewable resources which we bel-i-eve wil-1 help grow a renewable
energy industry in our communities and across the region.
The proposed changes we believe woul-d negatively
affect the opportunities to generate renewabl-e energy from
residential and smal-l- busj-nesses' rooftops, farmsteads, and
other decentral-ized facilities. Like investing in better
windows or more insulation to conserve energy and l-ower
electric bil-l-s, net metering is a way that customers can
exercise some control- over their energy bill-s. In doing so,
they are generati-ng electricity that has value to the Utility
and the other customers.
The electrj-c utility industry has been and 1s
undergoing radical- changes in how electricity 1s generated, how
it is conserved, how rates are structured, even what services a
utility provides. Idaho Power Company's net metering proposal
is backward-looking when a forward-looking approach woul-d
benefit customers.
About 20 years dgo, Idaho Power Company had a
program to help customers design and instal-l- off-the-grid sol-ar
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
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Publ-ic
systems j-f a distribution fine extension beyond a certain
length would be required to provide electricity to those
residences. Maybe the Company should consider revj-ving and
updatj-ng a rooftop solar program. What woul-d be the energy
outcome of investing even hal-f the amount of money in
distributed generation as it proposes to spend updating a
coal-fired plant?
As ratepayers, we support responsible, fair, and
forward-looking approaches by our electric util-ities.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you. Do you have that
in wrj-tten form? That would be very good to get that.
Just are there any other questions?
Is Stephanie Mil-l-er stil-1 working with
THE WITNESS: She shows up once in a whil-e, when
she's not baby-sitting or, you know
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Sounds l-ike she's having
fun.
THE WITNESS: Yep, she is.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you very much.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Anne Hausrath.
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HEDRTCK COURT
P. O. BOX 578,
REPORT]NG
BOISE, ID
ANNE HAUSRATH
Publ-ic
ANNE HAUSRATH,
appearing as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testified as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Good evening. Would you please state your fulL
name and spe11 your last name for the record?
A. Yes. My name is Anne Stites Hausrath,
H-A-U-S-R-A-T-H .
O. And what is your mailing address?
A. lB20 North Seventh Street, Boise , 83'102.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. Yes.
O. Have you previously submitted written testimony
or comments in this case?
A. Yes. My husband and I did. ft was quite
lengthy. f'm goj-ng to give you a very succinct version of what
f have come to think based on what's happened since we
submitted.
O. Okay, go ahead. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: Members of the Commission, thank
you for allowing me to testlfy. I encourage you to follow
Staff recommendations and raj-se the cap but deny all other
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HEDRICK COURTP. O. BOX 518,
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BO]SE, ID
ANNE HAUSRATH
Publ-ic
changes to net metering requested by Idaho Power.
fn order for you to make a fair and reasonabl-e
Decision, you wou1d need adequate data to weigh the real- costs
and also the benefits provided by net metering customers.
Idaho Power is asking for si-gnificant rate and rul-e changes
without providing evi-dence for their so-called costs of net
metering, and they have not addressed any of the significant
benefits to all customers from the net meteri-ng system. Some
of these benefits include and you've heard many of these,
but I thlnk it's very important because you have not been
presented this by the proposal at hand:
Small sol-ar rooftop installations are a prJ-vate
investment -- a private investment in infrastructure at no
cost to the general ratepayer;
Again, solar generation is most abundant during
the summer peak, thus foregoing costs to al-l- ratepayers for
additional- gas or coal- generation;
And, when a net metering customer j-s generating
their own electricity, they're not putting a drain on other
generation facilities,'
And, solar generated on rooftops does not use
Iong-distance transmj-ssion l-ines,'
And, distribution of any excess solar electricity
is to nearest neighbors, thus providing the most efficient type
of local distribution.
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My husband and I installed
we believed it was the right thing to do.
pay back our expenditure in our J-ifetime,
recoup some of our expenses. We did not
out for additional- monthly charges.
We, in Southern Idaho,
best conditions for generating solar
the country. If you were to approve
that would effectively shut down our
effectively depriving all ratepayers
and wind generation.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH:
there are any questions.
No questions. Thank
(The witness
COMMISSIONER SMITH:
are bl-essed by some of the
and wlnd electricity in
Idaho Powerts Request,
solar industry here,
of the benefits of sol-ar
Thank you Letrs see if
you very much.
left the stand. )
David Monsees.
solar panels
We did not
but we di-d
expect to be
because
expect to
expect to
singled
Net metering is not a drain on the system; it is
a safety valve. During periods of low stream f1ow, sofar can
provide a valuabl-e supplement during periods of greatest need.
The changes being proposed by Idaho Power are not
fair and they are not reasonable. I urge you to deny their
Request at this time and to except to increase the cap or
maybe eliminate it.
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MONSEES
Publ-ic
DAVID MONSEES,
appearing as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-Iows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLE]N:
O. Would you please state your full- name and spell
your last name for the record?
A. David Monsees. Thatrs M-O-N, ds i-n Nancy, S, as
in Sam, E-E-S, ds in Sam.
O. What's your mailing address?
A. 1341 West Parkhill Drive, Boise.
O. Are you an ldaho Power customer?
A. I am.
0. And have you previously submitted written comment
or testimony in this case?
A. I am not sure. f was on a medication for two
weeks and I kind of l-ost those two weeks. What f intend to say
tonight is something f know I would not have saj-d j-n anything f
said.
O. Go ahead.
Okay.
THE WITNESS: You've already heard facts from a
number of people; I wil-l- not go into that.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 5'7 B , BOTSE, rD
MONSEES
Public
But what we need to reallze is this is a moral-
issue. We have passed the tipping point on carbon monoxide and
dioxide content j-n the aj-r. This has happened on our watch.
Our parents may have had a littl-e something to do with it, but
we are the heavy guilty people. Our children will face severe
droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and bl.izzards, which
wj-l1 get worse if we do not wake up and do somethj-ng about
them. We can't count on our deadlocked federal- system; we have
to do it on the state and Iocal l-evel. If this trend and the
climate contj-nues, we are going to face starvatj-on, war, and
disease, and we wil-I see rioting in the streets of America.
Net metering is part of the sol-ution that we need
to take to get off of carbon. Idaho Power woul-d try and hold
back progress. Their proposal, effectively, has butchered the
solar business in this state. LaMont Keen, last time I heard,
was still saying that he was agnostic on c1imate change. We
can not l-et short-term corporate profits keep us away from our
moral duty to get off carbon. Over 150 coa1-fired plants have
closed to date in the Unlted States.Idaho Power seems to not,
you know, realj-ze they need to get on the bandwagon. If we
don't embrace green energy, we'fl be revil-ed by our descendents
and, frankly f have a science background and this is weird
for me to be talking this wdy, but human civilization as we
know it will- cease to exist somewhere down the road and if we
don't do something soonr w€ are to blame.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 5'78, BOTSE, rD
ALAN HAUSRATH
Public
I therefore request that you deny Idaho Power's
plan to do what they're doing to net metering, and I thank you
very much for the opportunity to speak tonight, and I hope you
make the moral deci-sion.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: We appreciate your
attendance. Let's see if there are any questions.
Thank you very much.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Al-an Hausrath.
ALAN HAUSRATH,
appearing as a public witness, being fj-rst duly sworn, was
exami-ned and testif ied as follows:
EXAMTNATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Woul-d you please state your name and speI1 your
last name for the record?
A. My name is Al-an Hausrath, and it's spelled
H-A-U-S-R_A-T_H .
O. And what is your mailing address?
A. tB20 North Seventh Street, Boise, fdaho, 83102.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
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HEDRICK COURT REPORT]NG
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ALAN HAUSRATH
Public
A. Yes, I am.
O. And have you previously submitted written
testj-mony or comments in this case?
A. I have, but this is a new poJ-nt that I didn't
make before.
O. Please go ahead.
A. Thank you.
THE VIITNESS: Commissioners, thank you. f'm -- ]
realize you're probably -- Irm certainly tired, so I'1I try to
keep this
COMMISSIONER SMITH: We've only been here since
9:30 this morning.
THE VIITNESS: I understand, yeah. It's a long
and hard day.
Basj-ca11y, I am an Idaho Power customer. I'm a
net metering customer. Despite al-l- of the conservatlon efforts
we've taken and adding the sol-ar panels to try to control our
electricity costs, we haven't reached net zero, so we're not in
that fearsome category of asking for money to be sent to us or
anything Iike that.
The main poi-nt I'd like to make is that I don't
believe that net metering customers shoul-d be put in a separate
class for tari-ff purpose. So why do I say that?
First of all, there aren't very many: 350 out of
however many Idaho Power has 9ot, 450,000 I think I've read.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
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ALAN HAUSRATH
Public
It's l-ess than a tenth of a percent. We're an inf initesimal-
group. And I'm sure if Idaho Power wanted, they could find
another group of 350 peopl-e who are different in some way and
another group who are different in some wdy, maybe all the
all-electric homes, all of the people who have put in
insulation, I don't know. But it doesn't seem reasonable, to
frer that such a smal-1 group be put into a tariff of its own.
AIso, if the tariff were reasonable, 1t wouldn't
have weird effects. So what do I mean by a "weird effects"?
If I'm a homeowner and I take conservation
measures and get down to 400 kilowatt hours per month, I'11- pay
actually 20 to $30 l-ess a month than a person who gets down to
400 ki1owatt hours by installj-ng so1ar. That doesn't make any
sense to me. At the other end, if f'm a big user of
electricity, say around 2,500 kilowatt hours , if I put a tiny
panel on my roof and go to net metering, I'11 save money. So
this is a very weird and bizarre effect. A reasonable tari-ff
wouldn't have these wei-rd effects.
So, in conclusion, I don't believe that a rate
structure with such bizarre quirks is fair, reasonable, or in
the public interest. I agree with the conclusions of Staff
that IPC-E-12-21 or however you're supposed to say it is
a step in exactly the wrong direction and should be rejected
except for doubling the cap. I'm in favor of that because I
don't quite see why there shoul-d be a cap.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
FAUCI
Public
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak
to you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: I appreciate your
succi-nctness.
Are there any questions?
Appreciate it very much.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Joani-e I'11 l-et Joanie
say her own last name.
JOANIE FAUCI,
appearJ-ng as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-l-ows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLE]N:
O. Woul-d you please state your ful-l- name and speII
your last name for the record?
A. Joanie Eauci, F-A-U-C-I.
0. What's your mailing address?
A. 2944 Hillway Drive, Boise, 83702.
O. Are you an fdaho Power customer?
A. Yes.
0. Have you previously submitted written comments or
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
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FAUCI
PubIic
testimony in thi-s case?
A. I have not.
O. Pfease go ahead.
THE WITNESS: Thank you, Commissioners, for
taking public comment after such a long day today. I was here
earlier this morning, but I couldn't stay all day.
f agree with al-l- of the previous speakers
tonight, so I wil-l- not repeat their points.
In 1931, Thomas Edison stated: f hope we don't
wait until we are out of coal and oil before we find an
al-ternative energy source.
And since the early 1900s, there has been the
recognition of the threat of cl-imate change and an
understandj-ng of the radical- reduction in fossj-1 fuel- use
required to address it.
As a society, we need energy efficiency and
demand response. We need distributed renewable energy. We
need to cancel- out future power plants and transmlss j-on l-ines.
AI1 of those things are to the good economically and
ecologJ-ca11y. Yet, utilities have every incentive to oppose
them. They are direct threats to their familiar, comfortable
business model, which has survived nearly a century unchanged.
So I thi-nk we need to do more than fiddle with rate structures.
We need a ground-up rethink of how utilitj-es work, how they are
structured, and how they can be reformed in a way that enab1es
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HEDRICK COURTP. O. BOX 578,
REPORTING
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FAUCT
Public
and accel-erates long overdue innovation j-n the electricity
space. Eor example, 20 years dgo, who woul-d have thought we'd
al-l- give up traditional telephone lines and go cel-l-ul-ar? Times
change.
The PUC has a history of supporting tools for
customers to control their energy bills 11ke energy efficiency
and air conditioning cool- credit program. Net metering is
another important tool. But let's not have a 5.8 megawatt cdp,
which could be reached in the next three to five years, nor
any no caps, nor any new fees on current and future sol-ar
customers or net metering customers.
I hope that Idaho Power and the PUC can come up
wj-th new innovative methods to make money, integrate
dj-stributed resources such as solar power, and .l-ead the way for
an empowered customer base in the future.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you very much.
Are there any questions?
Appreciate your patience j-n enduring.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Kelley Dugley (phonetic).
MR. DAGLEY: Cl-ose . Dagley.
COMMISSIONER SMfTH: Dagley. Thank you.
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
DAGLEYPublic
KELLEY DAGLEY,
appearing as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testified as follows:
EXAM]NATION
BY MR. KLETN:
O. Pl-ease say your name and spell your l-ast name for
the record.
A. Name is Ke11ey Dagley, D, as in deIta,
A-G-L-E-Y.
O. And what is your mailing address?
A. 30 Pine Cone Way, Boj-se, Idaho, 83116.
0. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I am.
O. Have you previously submitted written testimony
or comments in this case?
A. I have, but this will be new materlal.
O. Thank you.
A. Thank you.
THE WfTNESS: First, I want to thank the
Commission. f sat through aJ-1 of the hearings as weLl- and read
every single piece of testj-mony that you have onl-ine, and I
know it ' s a l-ot to go through.
And I want to thank everybody here too. The
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
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speakers here have been great. I think it's been reaI1y
informative. I know I've l-earned a 1ot just even after
everything I've been through so far.
I have a 25,000 watt system, resj-dential-, that I
just finished building about two months ago. It had been in
the planni-ng phases for several years. It is a net zero
system. ft's an all-electric house. ftrs l-ocated in the
mountains near Idaho City. So I wasnrt trying to make any
money off of the system. When I designed it, I tried to design
it so that it would be abl-e to meet all of our needs and
nothi-ng extra.
After looking at what Idaho Power has proposed,
if I were to do that same analysis today with the new proposal,
I would put in exactly one panel rather than 100, I would put
1n 250 watts, because every additional panel would be
essentially lost money. I'm kind of in that weird situation
where I'm a net zero situation right now, which means this is a
very disadvantageous situation to me when Idaho Power gets this
proposal; but I'm al-so a large consumer, which means if I
hadn't put the system in, it would be very advantageous to me
because I coul-d just go out and buy one paneI, throw it ofl, and
save a lot of money on my rates wj-thout actually doing anything
good for the environment or bei-ng net zero or helping out fdaho
Power or helping out my neighbors by sending el-ectrj-city over
to them.
551
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
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DAGLEY
Publi-c
So that's my story. Everybody here has covered
pretty much everything f think very wel1.
The only thing that I want to say is that I think
Idaho Power has done -- wel-I, they have done a job of covering
the costs very wel-}, it seems, for distributed generation.
They don't seem to have covered any of the benefits. And other
people have spoken to this as well-. It seems that what we're
al-l- trying to do here is talk about the benef its because j-t's
not being covered by Idaho Power, you know, and it's a hard
thing to value properly. It's not just something you can
just you can't pick a number out of the air. Is it worth
the exact, you know, flip side of the retail rate? Maybe 1t
is, maybe it's not. Probably not, you know, it probably isn't
worth that; it's probably worth a lot more, in my opinion.
I wou1d just l-ike to suggest that we should
have -- maybe the Commission, I don't know how this exactly
works, but maybe we cou.l-d fund a fu11y independent study to
determine what is the value of the distributed generation in
Idaho. That seems reaIIy critical to this. I mean, until you
can figure out what the va.l-ue reaIly is I mean, you can't
rea11y rely on Idaho Power to tell- us what the value is. You
know, they did great figuring out what the costs are, but we
real-Iy need to know what the benefit is. So, you know, until-
that can be done I understand these surveys, these analyses,
can be very expensive. You know, maybe, you know, until the
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 57Bt BOTSE, rD
DAGLEY
Public
time comes when maybe we can use time of use metering, you
know, get a better grip on how people are usj-ng the power and
putting it back on the grid, until the time comes when we can
actually afford to commissi-on a fu1ly exhaustive study and
study of the val-ue of distributed generation so1ar, for
example -- we should probably just hold off . f mean, j-trs not
rea1ly that big of an issue right now. It's really not an
issue right now.
So, that's my comment. Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: AlI right. Letrs see if
there are questions.
No?
Appreciate your time and appreciate your interest
in staying all day.
THE WITNESS: Yeah.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Steve White.
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HEDRICK COURT
P. O. BOX 578,
REPORTING
BOISE, ID
STEVE WHITE
Public
STEVE WH]TE,
appearing as a public wj-tness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as foll-ows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Please state your name and spell your last name
for the record.
A. Stephen White, W-H-I-T-E.
a. What is your mailing address?
A. Would you l-ike both sites that we have sol-ar
instal-Ied?
O. Sure.
A. We are a net current net metering customer.
I'11 give you both. 1518 Knights Drive, Boise, and 3778
Plantation River Drive, Boise.
O. So I take it you're an Idaho Power customer?
A. That is correct.
O. Have you previously submitted testimony in this
case ?
A. Yes, I have, but these are new points.
O. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: Irm sure that by now that the PUC
has heard of numerous fl-aws and logical shortfalls in IP
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
STEVE WHITE
Publ-ic
Idaho Power's rate case. Rather than going through al-I of
them, I've chosen to focus on a select few. Let me start with
a simple story.
We've been havi-ng some rea11y awkward
conversations around the home. Recentf y, an el-ectricj-an was
doing some maintenance on our home and when he l-ooked around
and saJ-d, Hum, you guys coul-d probably benefit from installing
some of these next generation LEDs.
Sounded good. But then my wife and I reflected:
We're net metering customers. Under this new proposalr we
would no longer have an incentj-ve to conserve energy.
My family scal-ed our solar PV system at home to
be net zero, to provide enough power to meet our current needs.
Accordj-ng to the terms that Idaho Power proposes, however, we
will never be able to benefit or save money from conservation
efforts going forward. Idaho Power alleges that we are
fundamentally different, and if we generate an extra kil-owatt
hour of powerr w€ need to apply to FERC for permj-ssion to be a
PURPA whol-esal-er. This assertion is so ridiculous, it's
laughable.
Having to tel-l- my daughters, You know, we've
always encouraged you to turn off your lights when yourre not
in your room or turn off your computers when you're not using
them. It doesn't matter anymore. Now, when youtre over at
your friends that are not net metering customers, yeah, you
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HEDRICK COURT REPORTING
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STEVE WHITE
Public
shoul-d abide by their rul-es and be responsible, but here at our
home, it wonrt matter anymore.
Because we're fundamentally different.
f'm sure that outcomes l1ke this are not what the
PUC wants to support.
Taking a long-term perspective is vital- to our
state's interests. Over time, technology improves and there
are opportunities to conserve power, ones that were not present
before. We have seen the benefits of this i-n the innovative
structure the PUC bu1lt with util-ities I1ke Idaho Power to
encourage utility customers to continually l-ook for ways to
conserve power. We personally have always sought to conserve
power and I'm sure my daughter can attest to that and
look for more active ways to reduce our power consumption, both
at home and at work. The PUC should only approve a structure
that supports the rights of net metering customers to benefit
from future conservation efforts.
The second point is is the proposal-
discrlminates in favor of large customers. I have an
undergraduate degree in finance, an MBA from the Harvard
Business School-, and am a CFA charter holder as a chartered
financial analyst. In my rol-e as a financial advisor, a good
proportion of my time i-s spent advising our customers to make
solid financial decisions. After being quoted in the WalI
Street Journal- on advising clients on energy efficiency and
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HEDR]CK COURT REPORT]NG
P. O. BOX 5'7I , BOTSE, rD
STEVE WHITE
Public
renewable energy issues, I've been contacted by many people in
Iearni-ng more about energy efficiency and those types of topics
throughout the Northwest.
Under the current rul-es, the financial analysis
process is logical and equitabl-e. A system with the same
production and the same cost produces the same financial- return
regardless of the size of customer you are, regardless of your
level of consumption.
Under the proposed rul-es, net metering will no
longer make sense for the smal-l- consumer. The fixed fees
represent a penalty that will- ruin the economics for that
consumer. Conversely, the big consumer wil-l uniquely benefj-t
regardless of the system sj-ze because of the move to a l-ower
per-kilowatt rate schedule.I would have to tell- my customers
that if they're liqht energy users, then renewable energy won't
make sense for them, but, hey, if you're a big energy user,
absolutely, you shou1d do this, because you'11 be abl-e to move
to a new rate system -- a new rate structure.
Why shoul-d all of a sudden the go/no-go decision
be based on how much power that person consumes? This rate
case was poorly conceived and clearly discriminates in favor of
the large consumer. Small customers will have no place in this
system and few, if dDy, new ones will connect. We shoul-d not
build a structure like this, one that dj-scriminates in favor of
the large energy user and against the light energy user. It
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HEDRICK COURT REPORT]NG
P. O. BOX 578, BOTSE, rD
STEVE WH]TE
Publ-ic
doesn' t make f inancial- sense, it ' s not equitabJ-e, and i-t ' s not
fair.
Point three: Customer-produced power has a
monetary val-ue. The current system is equitable because the
monetary val-ue of my excess generation j-s exchanged for the
monetary val-ue of the servj-ces provided by Idaho Power. In
Matthew Larkin's rebuttal, and I quote: In effect, financial
credits al-low customers who generate more than they consume to
reduce their power bil-ls to zero or less than zero, thus
allowing them to avoid paying for equipment and services they
utilize.
Here he's asserting that net metering customers
shoul-d not receive monetary val-ue for their power, because if
they do, then they are not paying for their share of the
system's fixed cost. As a financlal professional-, this makes
absolutely no sense. The excess power we upload to the grid
has real-, tangible value, and net meterers should receive a
financial- credit for this power. Additionally, if I exchange
$20 worth of power for their $20 worth of services, how am I
not paying? That's a fair, legitimate transaction. Both sides
are receiving benefits.
The current system is equitable as net meterers'
excess power is sol-d back to Idaho Power at the then-applicable
rate, which is the same rate Idaho Power charges them. Idaho
Power insists that we al-l- must pay our share of the fixed costs
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BO]SE, ID
STEVE WHITE
Public
and of course they are happy to assign a dollar va1ue to that
cost, yet in thls rate case they do not want to assign a
monetary value to the excess power that net metering customers
put back on the grid. Both our excess power and Idaho Power's
services have economic value, yet they are proposing to treat
it dj-fferently. The bottom l-ine: We shoul-d be able to
exchange the monetary val-ue of our excess power generation for
the monetary val-ue of their services. This is the only
equitable sol-ution for both sides.
Point four: Monetary value must be reconcil-ed.
Idaho Power alleges in its testimony that it is unique from
other states with net metering programs. Other states
reconcile with their net metering customers annually. To the
best of my knowledge, FERC has not pursued any of these states
with a viol-ation under PURPA regulations. They understand that
net metering customers have provided a valuabl-e service in
uploading excess power to the grid, which has a monetary va1ue.
If other states are reconciling with their net metering
customers on a monetary basis, then so shoul-d fdaho; otherwise,
taking excess power wi-thout paying for it is effectively
stealing.
In conclusion, I am confident that you, the
Commissloners of the PUC, wi-11- make the right Decision/ one
that supports future efforts to conserve power by net metering
customers; is nondi-scriminatory, allowing consumers to make
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Public
investment decisions based on the sj-ze of the system's
production and its cost and not the level of a consumer's
energy consumption; it recognizes that the excess power we
generate has monetary val-ue and that it may be exchanged for
utility servj-ces; and it recognizes that util-ities must
reconcile with their net metering customers on an annual basis.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Does that conclude your
statement?
THE WITNESS: That is correct.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Are there any questions?
We thank you very much for your time and
thoughtful comments.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Greg Olson.
GREG OLSON,
appearing as a publlc witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as foll-ows:
THE WITNESS: So, I want to thank you again
for
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EXAMINATTON
BY MR. KLEIN:
0. Cou1d you please state your name and spell your
l-ast name for the record?
A. My name is Greg Olson, O-L-S-O-N.
O. And what is your mailing address?
A. It is 8399 West Hill Road, Boise, 8371"4.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I am.
0. Have you previously submitted testimony or
comments in this case?
A. I have.
O. And so if you have a statement, please limit it
to new material.
A. I shaIl.
O. Thank you.
THE WITNESS: So, thanks again for doing this.
It's reaIly important that you guys hear all of these things,
and I'l-l- try and summarj-ze things that apply to me directly and
basicalJ-y kind of bring in a l-ot of the points that have
already been brought up.
One that I wanted to make clear is ldaho Power
has stated that they already have the billing software and the
hardware out there to be abl-e to continue net metering in a way
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that would not be onerous to small energy producers. Other
states have already done this, and there's mechanisms in this
state to be able to monetize that electricity both internally
within the state and the possibility to be abl-e to seII it to
other grids during peak loads outside of the state.
I own BIue Lightning Renewable Energy Solutions,
and f do a large number of both smal-l- and large sol-ar
installations here in the valley. I was in the Navy in
aviation electronJ-cs, I worked for Hewl-ett-Packard for almost
20 years, along with other subsidiary industries. And the
reason I bring that up is that skill set, that ability to work
with DC electricity, initially from the mil-itary and then
bringing that j-nto everything from computers, networking,
phone, cable TV, e.l-ectric vehicl-e operations, all of these
skill- sets I have the ability to go into. I was tired of
obsol-ete in three and broken i-n five; that's why I chose solar.
My busj-ness is based on doing a large install but
starting at a smal-I instal-l. In other words, I'11 put j-n one
or two kll-owatts and have the ability to upgrade to five
kilowatts at some point in the future. This change in net
metering basically shuts down any of those future install-s that
I'l-I have, and I'l-I have to find a lot of peak oi1 peopl-e that
are living up in the mountai-ns to do stand-alone systems, which
really isn't a good basis for a business.
Basically, I woul-d l-ike to see where we do a
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reasonable format where electricity is monetized in a way that
Idaho Power can continue to function; everybody in the state
gets a good deal on electrj-ci-ty; and we have a distributed grid
where people are making power throughout the state; we have
multj-ple different energy sources which can incl-ude coal or
natural 9ds, but al-so have people making energy; we are
dj-stributing the costs of those upgrades to the grid between
all of the different customers; we are giving each of these
people the ability to bring some of that money back to
themselves, either in a cost savings or, as some other states
have done, potentially even maki-ng some money, less money than
Idaho Power would make but yet monetizing it so it's win-win
for everybody, and thus making the economy in this state
stronger.
We have as much sun as Phoenix, Arizona. We
shoul-d use that. We shoul-d use that to bring more money into
this state, and to bal-ance and strengthen our entire ecosystem
and the economy here.
As far as any of the other specJ-fic issues that
people have brought up, I agree with them in general, but I
think that we have the potential- here to help everybody out a
lot by removi-ng the cap and not penalizing small- producers,
because a lot of those small producers wj-l-l eventually become
larger producers.
That's my comments.
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COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you very much.
Any questions?
COMMISSIONER REDFORD: No.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Appreciate your time.
(The witness l-eft the stand.)
COMMISSIONER SMITH: .fohn Ryan.
JOHN RYAN,
appearj-ng as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testif ied as fol-lows:
EXAMINAT]ON
BY MR. KLEIN:
O. Wou1d you please state your full- name and spe1I
your last name for the record?
A. Yes. It's John Ryan, R-Y-A-N. My address is
2499 East Herbert Drive. f am an Idaho Power customer.
O. Have you previously submitted testimony in this
case ?
A. I have, and this will be new.
O. New stuff?
A. Yes.
O. A11 right. Go ahead.
A. Okay.
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THE WITNESS: Yeah, I'm John Ryan. I am a net
metering customer here j-n Boise, and I have a few comments on
the proposal.
Eirst, I just wanted to say I was a littl-e bit
stunned by the testj-mony from Matt Larkin, the Idaho Power
analyst. I did read the whol-e testimony. You know, I found it
surprising that his testimony unfortunately attempted to pit
nearly hal-f a mil-lion ratepayers against me by accusing me of
increasing their electrj-c rates, saying, you know, basically
standard service customers are l-eft to compensate for the
shortfall due to what he cal-led inequities in the system.
In the same testi-mony, he failed to provide even
the most basic analysis regarding the rational-e for these
accusations; and he al,so fail-ed to provide any rational-e for
IPCo's proposal to increase fixed monthly fees by 300 percent
to ratepayers who, by definition, use the system l-ess than the
average ratepayer.
With that said, as a net metering customer, I
al-so do recognize some of the challenges net metering presents
to Idaho Power. New, cleaner, and 1ow-cost technol-ogies are
now availabl-e to their customers, so I want to be reasonable
and I am wi-11ing to compromj-se. Of course it's true, I benefit
from their power distrlbution system, and I bel-ieve Idaho Power
shoul-d be fairly compensated for my use of that system.
So along those lines, these are two things which
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I could agree to, I think, which wou1d help Idaho Power:
First, Ird say I am willing to forfeit the
potential for actual financial payments, you know, for my
excess energy production in return for a continuous,
nonexpiri-ng ro1lover of my excess energy production credits. I
real-ize that's not the feeling amongst everybody in the group
here, but I think, you know, most of us got into this probably
for other reasons. It's not just necessarily the financial
checks to receive. And from my personal point of view, I, you
know, was not looking to actually receive a check; a rollover
would be adequate.
Two, I am actually willing to pay an j-ncreased
fixed fee on a monthl-y basis to cover Idaho Power's fixed
costs; however, I believe these fixed monthly fees should be
applied evenly and without punitive design to address the fixed
cost of servJ-ng al-l residential customers and not applied
specifically just to net metering customers. I think if there
are fixed costs in the system, you know, it's fair that we pay
for them, but our flxed costs are not higher than my
nelghbors.
Lastly, I'd just l-ike to say that f regret very
much how Idaho Power's proposal was l-aunched in late 20L2
without any prior input from stakeholders. Instead of seeking
mutua1 solutions, Idaho Power chose to take an aggressive
adversarial- stance against its ratepayers. Perhaps a better
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outcome would result if Idaho Power chose to act in good faith
as the provider in the community which benefits from j-ts status
as a protected, regulated monopoly. I ask that the Commission
consider this in thei-r Decision.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you.
Any questions?
COMMISSIONER REDFORD: No-
COMMISSIONER SMITH: If it weren't so l-ate and I
wasn't so brain dead I would l-ike to have a conversation with
you, because I am appreciative of your recognj-tion of the fixed
cost issue and your willingness to pay an increased fee,
because, in my experi-ence, most utility customers do not like
the customer charge and they feel- it's unfair and they don't
understand what they're paying for.
THE WITNESS: I'I1 give you my phone number if
you'd like to talk more.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thanks.
THE WITNESS: One thing, if I could say one thing
just on that, just to make my point cfear if I can: I mean, I
think, you know, that that fixed fee, again, I think we've got
to pay it and, you know, the Company deserves to get that
reimbursed, but I donrt think there shoul-d be two classes on
that just for net metering customers.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: I understand that.
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THE VIITNESS : You did. Okay.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: I understand your point
there.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: That it's an issue across
the board.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: And it's a broad i-ssue of
collecting fixed costs in a commodity charge that varies with
usage.
THE WITNESS: Yep.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: And, therefore, people who
use more pay more, and people who donrt use a lot aren't
coveri-ng. I understand.
THE WITNESS: Right.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you. Appreciate your
time.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: I l-ost my 1j-st. Let's see.
Senna (phonetic) White.
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SIENNA WHITE,
appearing as a public witness, being first duly sworn, was
examined and testified as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. KLE]N:
0. Would you please state your name and spe1l your
last name?
A. Sienna White, W-H-I-T-E.
O. And what's your mailing address?
A. 1518 Knights Drive, Boise, ID, 837L2.
O. Are you an Idaho Power customer?
A. I think so. I don't pay the bills, but
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Lucky you.
THE WITNESS: In theory, yeah.
O. BY MR. KLEIN: Have you previously submitted any
testimony in this case?
A. Yeah, an onl-ine comment.
O. An onl-ine comment. So if you'11 just keep your
comments tonight to something that's
A. New, yeah.
O. Great.
A. Okay.
THE WITNESS: So, I attend Boise High, right
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around there. My family
COMMISSIONER SMITH: That way.
THE WITNESS: Oh, that way. My family and I,
we're al-l- really passlonate about renewable energy. For
example, whenever we drive somewhere my dad al-ways points out
all the solar and wind farms, which can get rea11y scary when
he's driving. He doesn't drive when we go to Washington.
Our family I think is rea1ly excited because we
see it as the right path for the future. Recently, we invested
j-n solar panels, we've got them on our roof, and they are
predicted to repay their val-ue in 12 years. rt seemed l-ike a
good investment when we got it; however, with the changes being
proposed, this prevj-ous1y logical and good investment doesn't
make financial- sense. These proposed changes destroy many of
the original incentives to lnstaIl solar.
Natural gas and coaf are not going to last
forever and I think this is obviously a fact, so, therefore,
basing our state's energy source on natural gas and coal just
doesn't make logical sense. Sol-ar panel is always going to be
around, we're always going to be abl-e to harvest energy from
our sun, in ten years, in 50 years, in 500 years. So it seems,
to me, that net metering and solar panels shoul-d be encouraged
and endorsed, and not hindered by our state's power company.
Passing this Application sets a precedent of
inhibiting renewable energy, and when you l-ook into Idaho's
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future, whj-ch is your future but it afso is my future and the
future of my peers who are growing up in this state, I do not
belj-eve that the precedent of inhibiting sol-ar energy is a
precedent that we can 1ogicaI1y, ethically, or responsibly
afford to set.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you very much.
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: (Applause. )
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Are there any questions?
No? That's good, because she's already gone.
MS. WHITE: Oh.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: That brings us to I think
the end of people who have signed up to testify, unless,
Daniel-, there are any more.
MR. DANIEL KLEIN: No more.
COMMISSfONER SMITH: I said it earlier today and
I will say it now, that I appreciate the Company actually
bringing this Application because I think these are j-ssues that
shou]d be explored and discussed; and I'm very pleased with the
public participation, both in the written comments online and
paper copies, and in your participates here tonight. And I
think j-t's important for the Commission to hear and understand
your concerns and your goalsr so I rea1Iy do appreciate that.
The other important thing that I think probably
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al-l- of us have gotten out of this is the j-mportance of a timely
Decision. Earlier today, w€ had someone who bemoaned the fact
that this has taken six months to get here and, you know, I
told him in the regulatory world, six months is the speed of
Iight. But I -- you have our conrmitment I think for the most
speedy Decision we can possibly do and give it the justice it
deserves, because I think these are important issues.
Any comments from the other Commissioners?
Wendy, thank you for lasting to the end.
As I said, the technical hearing was earlier
today, so that part of our process is finj-shed. There was some
concern expressed by members who wanted to send in further
written comments and they couldn't get it in by the end of
today, which would be the time we wou1d normally cl-ose the
record. And once the record is cl-osed in a case, then the
Commj-ssion views the evidence that's been presented and nothj-ng
el-se. So with that in mind, I was going to suggest that if
there are those who haven't commented who have thought of
somethj-ng new that they need to add, that we wil-I keep the
record open until Eriday for any further written or e-mail
comments; and then on Friday, the record will be cl-osed and the
Commission, when it gets the transcript, will be free to
del-iberate and we wil-l- issue our Decision as soon as possible,
because we do understand that people are making deci-sions and
they need they need that Decision as part of their
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decision-making process .
So we appreciate you and thank you for coming,
and the hearing is adjourned.
(The hearing adjourned. )
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AUTHENTICATION
This is to certify that the foregoing
Volumes II through IV are a true and correct transcript to the
best of my ability of the proceedings held in the matter of
Idaho Power Company's Application for authority to modify its
net metering service and to increase the generatj-on capacity
limit, Case No. IPC-E-72-27, commencing on Tuesday, June 11-,
2013, dL the Commission Hearj-ng Room, 412 West Washington,
Boise, Idaho, and the original thereof for the fil-e of the
Commissi-on.
Accuracy of aIl- preflled testimony as
originally submitted to this Reporter and incorporated hereln
at the direction of the Commj-ssion is the sofe responsibility
of the submitting part j-es.
WENDY J. MUR ot ry Publ-ic
in and for th ate of Idaho,residing at Meridi-an, Idaho.
My Commlssion expires 2-8-2074.
Idaho CSR No. 475
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AUTHENTICATION