20230411ICL_and_NWEC Initial Comments.pdf

IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION, Case No. PAC-E-22-15 Page 1
ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

Marie Callaway Kellner (ISB No. 8470)
710 N 6th Street
Boise, ID 83701
[phone]
[e-mail]
Attorney for the Idaho Conservation League

F. Diego Rivas (MT State Bar No. 68806741, pro hac vice admission)
1101 8th Ave
Helena, MT 59601
[phone]
[e-mail]
Attorney for the NW Energy Coalition

BEFORE THE IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

IN THE MATTER OF THE
APPLICATION OF ROCKY
MOUNTIAN POWER FOR
AUTHORITY TO IMPLEMENT THE
RESIDENTIAL RATE
MODERNIZATION PLAN
)
)
)
)
)
)

CASE NO. PAC-E-22-15

INITIAL COMMENTS

IDAHO CONSERVATION LEAGUE
AND NW ENERGY COALITION

COMES NOW the NW Energy Coalition (“NWEC”) and Idaho Conservation League
(“ICL,” together “NWEC/ICL”) with the following comments regarding Rocky Mountain
Power’s (“RMP” or “Company”) Residential Rate Modernization Plan (“Plan”) in the above
captioned matter. RMP’s Plan consists of three requests: i) increase the customer charge for
Schedule 1 and Schedule 36 to $29.25/month; ii) eliminate inclining block tiered rates for
Schedule 1; and iii) change the time of use periods in Schedule 36, matching the definitions of
on-peak and off-peak to match those in Schedule 9.1 NWEC/ICL strongly oppose the first two
requests and conditionally support an adjustment to the time of use rates.

1 Application, pages 2-3.
RECEIVED
Tuesday, April 11, 2023 2:20:30 PM
IDAHO PUBLIC
UTILITIES COMMISSION

IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION, Case No. PAC-E-22-15 Page 2
ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

These comments take each proposal in turn. As a general matter, RMP seeks to make rate
design changes outside of a general rate case, without stakeholder engagement, and despite a
settlement on the same or similar issues in its most recent rate review. Second, customer charges
are meant to cover only the marginal cost of adding a customer to the grid and any movement
toward straight fixed variable rate design hampers conservation efforts and results in negative
bill impacts to low-income customers. Third, simultaneously eliminating inclining block rates in
Schedule 1 further misaligns residential rate design with energy conservation and efficiency
price signals. And finally, NWEC/ICL support appropriately structured time of use rates, but
caution the Commission from accepting an opt-in program as a substitute for an appropriate rate
design that considers conservation and cost allocation in the general residential schedule.

I. The Company proposes substantial rate designs changes without consideration
of other ratemaking principles or adequate stakeholder and costumer input.

From the outset, the Commission should be concerned about Rocky Mountain Power’s
piece-meal approach to ratemaking. When authorizing rates for a publicly owned monopoly
utility, public utility commissions must authorize a rate of return, consider usage forecasts,
establish a revenue requirement, allocate revenue to customer classes, determine the rate design,
allocate the revenue to charges within that rate design, and finally determine the rate. In taking
these steps, PUCs often rely on the Bonbright principles of public utility rates, which can be
grouped into four general categories:
1) Sufficiency: Rates should be designed to yield revenues sufficient to cover utility costs.
2) Fairness: Rates should be designed so that costs are fairly apportioned among different
customers, and “undue discrimination” in rate relationships is avoided.

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ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

3) Efficiency: Rates should provide efficient price signals and discourage wasteful usage.
4) Customer acceptability: Rates should be relatively stable, predictable, simple, and easily
understandable.2
All four categories of the Bonbright principles must be considered and balanced. Yet,
RMP’s Plan focuses exclusively on fairness and either ignores or gives short consideration to
other important pieces of the ratemaking puzzle. For example, RMP states that the Plan is
“designed to be revenue neutral and does not increase the overall revenue collected from
customers.”3 Yet, by filing a rate-design only application, RMP ignores the impact that increased
certainty of cost recovery has on the way the investment community sees the company.
Specifically, higher fixed charges equate to increased likelihood of cost recovery, due to the
elimination of sales variations attributable to weather and the economy. Investors are more likely
to invest in a utility with less risk, meaning a downward adjustment in the utility’s ROE may be
warranted. As a result, without such an adjustment, RMP’s Plan may skew the sufficiency of
rates in favor of the company.4
Similarly, high fixed charges send negative price signals regarding energy efficiency and
conservation. Once again, increased usage as result of the negative conservation price signal
skews the sufficiency of rates in favor of the company as increased usage inherently leads to

2 Whited, et. al., The Ratemaking Process, Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., July, 2017, p. 6. https://www.synapse-
energy.com/sites/default/files/Ratemaking-Fundamentals-FactSheet.pdf. See also, Bonbright, James C., Principles of
Public Utility Rates, Columbia University Press, 1961. Reproduced with permission by the Regulatory Assistance
Project, https://www.raponline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/powellgoldstein-bonbright-
principlesofpublicutilityrates-1960-10-10.pdf.
3 Application at p.5, ¶10.
4 To be clear, NWEC/ICL are not advocating for a reduction in ROE, nor would the parties support the Rate
Modernization Plan with such a reduction. The point, rather, is that the Plan, as filed, in an incomplete picture of the
utility’s system, which undermines the ability for the Commission to balance the competing principles of
sufficiency, fairness, efficiency, and acceptability.

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ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

increased revenue, potentially above the authorized revenue requirement. Furthermore, high
fixed charges and the elimination of block rates facially violate the efficiency principles, as
discussed in more detail below.
The singular rationale provided by RMP falls presumably under the category of fairness,
claiming that larger energy users within the residential class subsidize those who consume less.5
Aside from conclusory testimony that the current rate structure results in intraclass
subsidization,6 RMP provides no evidence that a problem exists that needs fixing. Indeed, RMP
appears torn about its own rationale:
The Customer Service Charge falls short of covering the fixed costs that are
incurred by residential customers and those fixed costs are therefore recovered
through the volumetric Energy Charges. Accordingly, the Company proposes to
increase the monthly Customer Service Charge and commensurately lower the
volumetric Energy Charge for Schedules 1 and 36 over a five-year transition
period to better align residential rates with the cost causation.7

Though the Company attempts to connect the dots between cost causation and intraclass
subsidization later in the filing, the Commission should require evidence of the latter in order to
accurately weigh the issue of fairness against the other Bonbright principles.
The full weight of the evidence necessary to conduct this balancing act is more properly
found within a general rate case filing. RMP filed for a general rate review in May of 2021,
receiving a final order in late December 2021, a mere ten months before filing the Rate
Modernization Plan application.8 Despite claiming that other issues in a general rate case

5 Meredith, Di-7, lines 5-7.
6 Id.
7 Application at 3-4, ¶7.
8 PAC-E-21-07

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ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

preclude the utility and Commission from meaningfully addressing rate design,9 RMP proposed
an increase to the customer charge in the 2021 Rate Case, among other rate design proposals.
RMP’s proposal to increase the customer charge from $5 to $8, a 60% increase, was ultimately
agreed to via settlement, along with many of the other proposals.10
Except for the specific changes noted below, the Parties agree that the design of
rates by rate schedule (rate design) and tariff changes shall be consistent with
the Company’s proposals as set forth in the Application, the Direct testimony of
Robert M. Meredith and accompanying exhibits, and the Direct Testimony of
Melissa Nottingham. Details of the rate design are included in Attachment 3 to
this Stipulation.11

Attachment 3 includes nine pages of rate design specifics, undermining RMP’s assertion that a
general rate case is too complicated for discussions about rate design. Indeed, as has been shown,
the opposite is true, and it is the “host of different issues raised in general rate cases”12 that
necessitates consideration of rate design issues in conjunction with those issues.

II. The Company’s customer charge proposal departs from sound regulatory
principles without adequate justification.

NWEC/ICL oppose the Plan’s shift in rate design from monthly customer charges of
$8.00 per month, agreed to in settlement of the Company’s most recent general rate case, to a
monthly charge of $29.25. The proposed customer charge far exceeds reasonableness as well as
comparable customer charges of other investor-owned utilities in the state and region. The
Company’s application loosely justifies this change on a misallocation of its costs into the

9 Meredith Di-5, lines 10-11.
10 PAC-E-21-07, Settlement Stipulation, p. 5, ¶17.
11 Id.
12 Meredith, Di-5, lines 10-11.

IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION, Case No. PAC-E-22-15 Page 6
ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

customer charge. The proposed cost structure also blunts price signals, likely leading to
decreased energy conservation and efficiency and potential overcollection. In all instances, the
Company’s analysis and support is conclusory and lacking.

a. The Plan mischaracterizes and misallocates costs into the customer charge.
RMP’s Rate Modernization Plan attempts to “recover all costs related to the distribution
system and customer service through the Customer Service Charge.”13 A giant step towards
straight-fixed variable rate design, RMP’s Plan requires all customers, regardless of usage, to pay
an equal amount of the cost of the distribution system. In doing so, RMP requests a monumental
change in rate design, one that fundamentally shifts the purpose of the customer charge away
from paying the cost of adding an additional customer to the system.
RMP claims, “[t]he Customer Service Charge falls far short of covering the fixed costs
that are incurred by residential customers and those fixed costs are therefore recovered through
volumetric energy charge.”14 This statement conflates the purpose of the customer charge, which
was never intended to recover all fixed costs. Indeed, the customer charge was never intended to
cover any of the fixed costs not related to utility costs that vary by the number of customers. The
Regulatory Assistance Project (“RAP”), leading experts in the field of rate design, define
Customer Charge: “A fixed charge to consumers each billing period, typically to cover metering,
meter reading and billing costs that do not vary with size or usage. Also known as a basic service

13 Meredith, Di-7, lines 10-11.
14 Meredith, Di-4, lines 15-17.

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ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

charge or standing charge.”15 Distribution costs related to substations, transformers, or other
pieces of the transmission and distribution system are not included in this definition.
The Idaho PUC accepted this definition in its regulation of similarly situated water
utilities:16

Other jurisdictions also recognize this definition. In 2019, a Hawaii PUC decision and
order defined Time of Use Rate elements: “A customer charge: applied as a fixed monthly
charge, to recover customer-specific metering and billing costs only.”17 (emphasis added). The
order went on to state, “The customer charge is intended to recover costs, commonly known as
customer-related costs, that the utility must expend due to having any customer in the system

15 Lazar, J., Chernick, P., Marcus, W., and Lebel, M. (Ed.) (2020, January). Electric cost allocation for a new era: A
manual. Montpelier, VT: Regulatory Assistance Project. P. 259.
16 https://puc.idaho.gov/FileRoom/PublicFiles/tariff/water/Rocky%20Moutain%20Utility%20Company.pdf
17 Hawaii PUC, Docket No. 2019-0323, Order No. 38680, p. 25.

IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION, Case No. PAC-E-22-15 Page 8
ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

regardless of energy usage. Customer-related costs can be thought of as costs that vary with the
number and type of customers, and can include items such as metering and billing.”18
The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) specifically excluded
cost elements in a recent Puget Sound Energy docket, cost elements that RMP has incorporated
into its customer charge proposal.
We determine that neither PSE’s proposal to increase basic charges for
residential customers, nor Staff’s recommendations to add a minimum bill to
basic charges and establishing seasonal rates, should be adopted. We are not
persuaded on the basis of the current record that transformer costs should
recovered in basic charges, or through a minimum bill. We have never approved
such a proposal and continue to believe these costs are not customer-related costs
as that term is generally understood. Transformer costs should be recovered as
distribution charges subject to PSE’s electric decoupling mechanism, which
adequately protects the Company’s recovery of its fixed costs.19

Applying these definitions, RMP’s contention that the customer charge does not adequately
reflect cost causation does not hold water. With regard to the customer charge, the utility incurs
the same cost for each user on the system – the cost of metering, meter reading, billing, payment
processing and customer service.20 Utilizing Meredith Exhibit 1, at most three categories should
be included in the customer charge – distribution-service, distribution-meter, and retail – for a
total maximum customer charge of $10.36.21
Despite RMP’s attempt to befuddle the Commission by including unregulated rural
electric cooperatives in its customer charge comparison,22 RMP’s current customer charge, at

18 Id. at 28.
19 WUTC, Dockets UE-17033 and UG-170034 (consolidated), Order 08, 2017.
20 Lazar, J., Shwartz, L., and Allen, R., (2011, April). Pricing Do’s and Don’ts: Designing Retail Rates As if
Efficiency Counts., Montpelier, VT: Regulatory Assistance Project. p. 3.
21 Again, NWEC/ICL does not advocate that the Commission should set the customer charge at this amount, due to
lack of evidence – or at best outdated evidence – supporting such a change.
22 Meredith, Di-9, Table 1.

IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION, Case No. PAC-E-22-15 Page 9
ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

$8/month, is already the highest among regulated IOUs in the state (Idaho Power at $5/month
and Avista at $7/month). A quick survey of regulated utilities in neighboring states confirms that
RMP’s proposal is outside the realm of reasonableness:
• NorthWestern Energy, MT: $4.2023
• Puget Sound Energy, WA: $7.4924
• Avista, WA: $9.0025
• Portland General Electric, OR: $11.0026
PacifiCorp-owned utilities throughout the region follow a similar pattern, with an average
of $11.34 for single-family residential service (decreasing to $10.81 when including the current
$8 customer charge in Idaho):27
Approved customer service charges for residential classes for each of PacifiCorp’s
utilities.

State Schedule Type Rate ($/per month)
Idaho 1 General Residential 8
36 Optional Time of Use 15
Utah 1 Single Phase - Single Family 10
2 Three Phase - Single Family 20
2E Single Phase - Multi Family 6
3 Three Phase - Multi Family 12
Wyoming 2, 18, 19 20
California D, DL-6 8.12
Oregon 4 Single Family 11
6 Multi Family 8
Washington 16, 19 7.75

23 https://northwesternenergy.com/docs/default-source/default-document-library/billing-and-payment/rates-and-
tariffs/montana/rates/reds-1933b5c9b14154e8b90ee517d07d1098e.pdf NorthWestern Energy is currently
undergoing a general rate review in which no increase to the residential customer charge was proposed.
24 https://www.pse.com/-/media/Project/PSE/Portal/Rate-
documents/summ_elec_prices_2023_03_01.pdf?sc_lang=en
25 https://www.myavista.com/-/media/myavista/content-documents/our-rates-and-tariffs/wa/waeshortcuts.pdf
26https://assets.ctfassets.net/416ywc1laqmd/6RgTNk5RU1bldl0LdPpIY9/5ddcb2f19d67fdebdc14848d781dfb29/Sch
ed_007.pdf
27 RMP Response to RFP ICL-NWEC 7.

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The Commission need look no further than RMP’s response to Request for Production
ICL-NWEC 5 to understand why inclusion of additional costs into the customer charge is
problematic. Of the 36,844 transformers that directly serve customers, over 51% serve more than
one customer, with 963 serving 10 customers or more. Attempting to fairly allocate transformer
costs under one customer charge is futile. Either the utility averages the entirety of transformer
costs among all customers in the rate class, in which case more rural customers (one customer
per transformer) likely subsidize more urban users (one transformer serving multiple customers),
or the utility assigns the entirety of the cost of a single transformer to each customer, in which
case the utility over-collects and urban customers subsidize rural users. Similarly, it is not
difficult to conceive a scenario in which a new customer connects to the grid utilizing a
transformer already being paid for by other customers. Collection of the customer charge
inclusive of the transformer costs from the new customer means the utility double charges for the
cost of that transformer. This is anathema to sound public utility regulation.
The Regulatory Assistance Project adequately sums up the issue: “To the extent that
regulation is a substitute for market forces, regulators should be careful in considering higher
basic charges to recover costs that are incurred for utility infrastructure. In general, all
distribution costs other than operating expenses, such as basic metering and billing, should be
recovered through volumetric rates, reflecting the fact that utility distribution grids are justified
only where usage levels are high enough to justify grid construction. In the long run, there are no
fixed costs.”28 The Company’s assertion that high customer charges best allocate costs to

28 Lazar, J., Shwartz, L., and Allen, R., (2011, April). Pricing Do’s and Don’ts: Designing Retail Rates As if
Efficiency Counts., Montpelier, VT: Regulatory Assistance Project. p. 6.

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ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

customers is not an actuarial certainty – it is a deliberate deviation from rate making principles
that is not adequately supported by this application.

b. High Fixed Charges mute price signals for energy efficiency and conservation
Public Utility Commissions, including the Idaho PUC, have long made the policy
decision that the Bonbright principles encouraging the efficient use of resources should be given
considerable weight. As commissions and utilities express concern about resource adequacy and
the ability to meet peak load, coupled with electrification and decarbonization goals of various
states and utilities, the ID PUC should double down on this policy objective. RMP’s Plan to
increase the fixed charge 365%, from $8/month to $29.25/month, runs counter to the objective of
efficient usage and may indeed exacerbate peak load issues.
The importance of energy efficiency and conservation stems from the fact that not only
does the resource reduce individual customer bills, it reduces overall system cost by reducing
peak demands and avoiding expensive generation and transmission upgrades.29 However, higher
fixed charges, and thus lower energy charges, means customers have less incentive to reduce
their electricity use because they are required to pay the higher fixed charge regardless of energy
use.30 As noted by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), “it
may be more reasonable to lower the fixed costs and increase the volumetric rate, which would
send a more efficient price signal.”31

29 Baatz, B. Everyone Benefits: Practices and Recommendations for Utility System Benefits of Energy Efficiency,
ACEEE. June 2015. https://www.aceee.org/research-report/u1505
30 Southern Environmental Law Center, A Troubling Trend in Rate Design: Proposed Rate Alternatives to Harmful
Fixed Charges. https://legacy.uploads.southernenvironment.org/news-feed/A_Troubling_Trend_in_Rate_Design.pdf
31 NARUC Manual on Distributed Energy Resources Rate Design and Compensation.
https://pubs.naruc.org/pub/19FDF48B-AA57-5160-DBA1-BE2E9C2F7EA0

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We encourage the Commission to continue sending a strong signal that energy efficiency
and conservation plays a vital role in keeping costs low and ensuring resource adequacy and
reliability during this dynamic period of electrification and decarbonization of the electric grid.

c. High Fixed Charges Disproportionately Hurt Low- and Moderate-Income Customers
In its application, RMP notes that the Rate Modernization Plan will lower bills for some
customers while simultaneously increasing bill for others.32 Exhibit 3 confirms, in line with
RMPs stated goal of requiring smaller users pay more, that those customers using below the
average of 783 kwh/month to those slightly above the average will indeed bear the entirety of
any increase in monthly bills. National data indicates that low-income households, on average,
use less electricity than non-low-income households.33 Taking the two together, it can be inferred
that RMP’s Plan places a higher monthly burden on low-income users, while reducing the bills
for those with an already low energy burden.34
The impact to low-income customers is compounded when taking into consideration
weatherization and efficiency efforts will have a significantly lower benefit due to the
requirement to pay the higher fixed charge regardless of energy usage. For these reasons, 33
groups representing consumer, low-income, environmental, and technology-specific advocates
signed a letter to NARUC stating, “We are also concerned that imposing increased fixed

32 Application at p. 4, ¶9. RMP claims that “rates” will decrease for some and increase for others. We assume they
mean “bills,” which is the total monthly amount paid by customers.
33 See Low Income Home Energy Data for FY 2017, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, p. 3, showing
that non-low income households use, on average, 64.1 MMBTU of electricity per year, while low-income
households use 50.4 MMBTU, and LIHEAP recipients using 53.7 MMBTU.
34 Energy burden equals the percentage of income spent on utility bills.

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ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

charges…may stifle development of nascent technology, discourage innovation, reduce customer
control over electricity costs and disproportionately harm low-use and low-income users.”35
It should also be noted that representatives of the low-income community were a party to
PAC’s most recent rate review, withdrawing, in combination with ICL, when a settlement was
reached to increase the customer charge. All remaining parties signed on to the settlement,
raising the customer charge $3/month. That case concluded just 10 months prior to RMP filing
its Rate Modernization Plan, effectively pulling the rug out on that stipulation. While proposed
changes to rate design can be expected in future general rate cases, it is disingenuous at best to
make a single-issue proposal mere months after agreeing to a settlement. This is especially true
considering RMP appears to have made no effort to reach out to stakeholders in advance of filing
its Plan.
We encourage the Commission to reject any increase to the customer charge at this time
and to direct RMP to work with stakeholders before its next general rate case in order to alleviate
any potential burden rate design issues may have on that filing.

III. Elimination of block rates further erodes energy efficiency efforts, while cost-
based inclining block rates, coupled with opt-in TOU, provides a meaningful
choice for customers to save energy and money.

As noted by RMP, inclining block rates have been used as a rate design tool to encourage
customers to use less energy.36 As the move toward electrification continues to accelerate,
NWEC/ICL are sympathetic to the disconnect between societal encouragement of customers to
shed natural gas in favor of using more electricity while also charging higher rates for the

35 https://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/files/2016/06/Good-Rate-Design-Process-Letter-to-NARUC.pdf
36 Meredith, Di-10, lines 3-4.

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increased usage. However, as previously noted, it is precisely because of the impending shift to
electricity for space and water heating that it remains vital to utilize all tools in the tool shed,
including rate design, to encourage energy efficiency and conservation.
It is but a truism that a residential customer’s energy use will vary based upon household
size and fuel type.37 Energy usage will also vary depending on weather, economic productivity,
or even how many times a customer goes on vacation. Nevertheless, the fact remains that over
time price signals do work, as evidenced by RMPs desire to use pricing as a way “to better
reflect times when it is more costly for the Company to serve.”38
Furthermore, though RMP’s rate design may or may not be based on specific costs,
properly designed block rates are indeed cost-based. For one, rates can be based on the cost of
resources in the utility’s resource stack, with a rate for in-service, older units, and a higher rate
for newer resources or short-term market purchases to meet peak load.39 Another option is to set
the block rates based on load factor: “end-uses associated with higher levels of residential usage
– mostly space conditioning (heating and cooling) – coincide far more with peak demand hours
on the utility system than basic usage like lights and appliances. The annual load factor of space
conditioning can be as low as 15 percent, compared with 70 percent and higher for basic usage.
A lower load factor means higher capacity costs per kilowatt-hour, and therefore justifies higher
prices for higher levels of usage. In other words, more of the fixed-costs must be spread over
fewer unit charges creating a higher unit price.”40

37 Meredith, Di-10, lines 11-13.
38 Meredith Di-13-14, lines 23-1.
39 Lazar, J., Shwartz, L., and Allen, R., (2011, April). Pricing Do’s and Don’ts: Designing Retail Rates As if
Efficiency Counts., Montpelier, VT: Regulatory Assistance Project. p. 3.
40 Id. See also: Global Best Practices in Residential Electric Rate Design, https://www.raponline.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/05/rap-lazar-globalratedesign-camunicipalratesgroup-2013-may.pdf

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ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

Lastly, NWEC/ICL believe it is precisely the juxtaposition between Schedule 1 and
Schedule 36 that provides appropriate price-signals to all residential customers, giving them a
choice on how and when to consume energy in order to save money on their bills. In Schedule 1
residential customers can choose to use less on a monthly basis; in opt-in Schedule 36, customers
can shift load to non-peak times. Both are necessary components of keeping costs low in the
future.
Again, we encourage the Commission and RMP to investigate cost-based block rates
before dismissing their efficacy outright and look forward to working with the company on
comprehensive rate design reform in the future in order to meet the needs of the utility and its
customers.

IV. NWEC/ICL support justified adjustments to the time of use rate, but not as
substitute for conservation promoting rate design under General Residential
Schedule 1.
NWEC/ICL support the company’s proposal to shift time of use rate windows in
Schedule 36 to match those of Schedule 9. Under the principle that rate design should strive to
closely match charges to system costs, benchmarking time of use windows to EIM prices or
other market indexes is well reasoned. So far as they balance priorities for ratemaking,
NWEC/ICL support well designed time of use rates as a highly effective conservation and
efficiency price signal that afford customers cost saving opportunities.
Delaying the shift until AMI rollout is complete is reasonable, and we support the
Company’s efforts to install advanced metering that makes modern rate designs like time of use
rates more effective. On the same note, the Company’s proposed three-year delay shows that this
is not a time critical issue, and final resolution on an amended time of use schedule could be
decided in a subsequent docket without harm to customers or the Company. Effective time of use

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ICL & NWEC Joint Initial Comments

rates can offer substantial energy and costs savings – the Company and Commission can, and
should, afford due time and consideration to make the best rate possible.
Nonetheless, we caution the Commission against accepting the Plan in whole because the
opt-in time of use Schedule 36 should not be seen as a substitute for an appropriate rate design in
the default general residential Schedule 1. As an opt-in program with approximately 8,800
accounts, Schedule 36 is some five times smaller than Schedule 1 at approximately 48,000
accounts.41 As stated throughout these comments, we hold serious reservations about energy
conservation under the amended plan. It is highly unlikely, and unexamined, that any potential
energy savings gained by adjusting time of use windows would offset losses from the Plan’s
much larger default schedule without any rate design elements to promote conservation.
Furthermore, it is unclear that the Plan as a whole would promote substantial growth to
the opt-in time of use schedule. While we support the company refining its time of use rates, we
continue to encourage RMP to engage stakeholders to collaboratively understand and develop
rate design mechanisms that benefit both the utility and its customers.

Conclusion
NWEC/ICL ask the commission to reject the Company’s application. Rate design is an
embedded component of revenue collection and overall system design. A rate design request of
this magnitude necessitates consideration during a general rate case, or at least elements of a
general rate review. By simultaneously eliminating block rates and dramatically increasing
monthly customer charges, the Company offers a rate design without conservation price signals

41 See RMP Response to RFP ICL-NWEC 2 and ICL-NWEC 3.

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that shifts costs to lower-income and lower-volume customers. While we support adjusting time
of use rate windows to accurately reflect costs, the specific proposal does not overcome the short
comings of the plan in whole. The Commission should reject the application and fully consider
these issues in the Company’s next general rate case, preferably after meaningful stakeholder
engagement.

DATED: April 11, 2023 s/ Marie Callaway Kellner
Marie Callaway Kellner
Attorney fir Idaho Conservation League

s/ F. Diego Rivas
F. Diego Rivas
Attorney for NW Energy Coalition
IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION, Case No. PAC-E-22-15 Page 1
ICL & NWEC, Certificate of Service
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on this 11th day of April 2023, I delivered true and correct copies of
the foregoing INITIAL COMMENTS to the following persons via the method of service noted:

/s/ Marie Callaway Kellner

Marie Callaway Kellner (ISB No. 8470)
Attorney for the Idaho Conservation League
710 N. 6th St.
Boise, Idaho 83702
[e-mail]

Electronic Mail Only (See Order No.
35058):

Idaho Public Utilities Commission
Jan Noriyuki
Commission Secretary
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Commission Staff
Claire Sharp
Deputy Attorney General
Idaho Public Utilities Commission
[e-mail]

Rocky Mountain Power
Mark Alder
1407 W. North Temple, Suite 330
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
[e-mail]

Joe Dallas
Attorney for Rocky Mountain Power
825 NE Multnomah Street, Suite 2000
Portland, OR 97232
[e-mail]

Clean Energy Opportunities for Idaho

Mike Heckler
Courtney White
3778 Plantation River Dr., Suite 102
Boise, ID 83703
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Kelsey Jae
Law for Conscious Leadership
920 N. Clover Dr.
Boise, ID 83703
[e-mail]
IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION, Case No. PAC-E-22-15 Page 2
ICL & NWEC, Certificate of Service