Arizona Administrative Code › Title 14 - PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATIONS; CORPORATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS; SECURITIES REGULATION › Chapter 2 - CORPORATION COMMISSION - FIXED UTILITIES › Article 25 - GAS UTILITY ENERGY EFFICIENCY STANDARDS › Section R14-2-2501 - Definitions

Current through Register Vol. 30, No. 28, July 12, 2024
In this Article, unless otherwise specified:
1. "Adjustment mechanism" means a Commission-approved
				  provision in an affected utility's rate schedule allowing the affected utility
				  to increase and decrease a certain rate or rates, in an established manner,
				  when increases and decreases in specific costs are incurred by the affected
				  utility.
2. "Affected utility" means a public service corporation that
				  provides gas utility service to retail customers in Arizona.
3. "Baseline" means the level of gas demand, gas consumption,
				  and associated expenses estimated to occur in the absence of a specific DSM
				  program, determined as provided in
				  R14-2-2513.
4. "CHP" means combined heat and power, which is using a
				  primary energy source to simultaneously produce electrical energy and useful
				  process heat.
5. "Commission" means the Arizona Corporation
				  Commission.
6. "Cost-effective" means that total incremental benefits
				  from a DSM measure or DSM program exceed total incremental costs over the life
				  of the DSM measure, as determined under
				  R14-2-2512.
7. "Customer" means the person or entity in whose name
				  service is rendered to a single contiguous field, location, or facility,
				  regardless of the number of meters at the field, location, or facility.
8. "Delivery system" means the infrastructure through which
				  an affected utility transmits and then distributes gas energy to its
				  customers.
9. "DSM" means demand-side management, the implementation and
				  maintenance of one or more DSM programs.
10. "DSM measure" means any material, device, technology,
				  educational program, practice, or facility alteration designed to result in
				  increased energy efficiency and includes CHP used to displace space heating,
				  water heating, or another load.
11. "DSM program" means one or more DSM measures provided as
				  part of a single offering to customers.
12. "DSM tariff" means a Commission-approved schedule of
				  rates designed to recover an affected utility's reasonable and prudent costs of
				  complying with this Article.
13. "Energy efficiency" means the production or delivery of
				  an equivalent level and quality of end-use gas service using less energy, or
				  the conservation of energy by end-use customers.
14. "Energy efficiency standard" means the reduction in
				  retail energy sales, in percentage of therms or therm equivalents, required to
				  be achieved through an affected utility's approved DSM and RET programs as
				  prescribed in
				  R14-2-2504.
15. "Energy savings" means the reduction in a customer's
				  energy consumption, expressed in therms or therm equivalents.
16. "Energy service company" means a company that provides a
				  broad range of services related to energy efficiency, including energy audits,
				  the design and implementation of energy efficiency projects, and the
				  installation and maintenance of energy efficiency measures.
17. "Environmental benefits" means avoidance of costs for
				  compliance, or reduction in environmental impacts, for things such as, but not
				  limited to:
a. Water use and water contamination;
b. Monitoring storage and disposal of solid waste, such as
				  coal ash (bottom and fly);
c. Health effects from burning fossil fuels; and
d. Emissions from transportation and production of
				  fuels.
18. "Fuel-neutral" means without promoting or otherwise
				  expressing bias regarding a customer's choice of one fuel over another.
19. "Gas" means either natural gas or propane.
20. "Gas utility" means a public service corporation
				  providing natural gas service or propane service to the public.
21. "Incremental benefits" means amounts saved through
				  avoiding costs for gas purchases, delivery system, and other cost items
				  necessary to provide gas utility service, along with other improvements in
				  societal welfare, such as through avoided environmental impacts, including, but
				  not limited to, water consumption savings, water contamination reduction, air
				  emission reduction, reduction in coal ash, and reduction of nuclear
				  waste.
22. "Incremental costs" means the additional expenses of DSM
				  measures, relative to baseline.
23. "Independent program administrator" means an impartial
				  third party employed to provide objective oversight of DSM and RET
				  programs.
24. "kWh" means kilowatt-hour.
25. "Leveraging" means combining resources to more
				  effectively achieve an energy efficiency goal, or to achieve greater energy
				  efficiency savings, than would be achieved without combining resources.
26. "Low-income customer" means a customer with a below
				  average level of household income, as defined in an affected utility's
				  Commission-approved DSM program description.
27. "Market transformation" means strategic efforts to induce
				  lasting structural or behavioral changes in the market that result in increased
				  energy efficiency.
28. "Net benefits" means the incremental benefits resulting
				  from DSM minus the incremental costs of DSM.
29. "Non-market benefits" means improvements in societal
				  welfare that are not bought or sold.
30. "Program costs" means the expenses incurred by an
				  affected utility as a result of developing, marketing, implementing,
				  administering, and evaluating Commission-approved DSM programs.
31. "RET" means a renewable energy resource technology
				  application utilizing an energy resource that is replaced rapidly by a natural,
				  ongoing process and that displaces conventional energy resources otherwise used
				  to provide energy to an affected utility's Arizona customers.
32. "RET program" means one or more RETs provided as part of
				  a single offering to customers.
33. "Revenue decoupling" means a mechanism that reduces or
				  eliminates the connection between sales volume and the recovery of an affected
				  utility's Commission-approved cost of service.
34. "Self-direction" means an option made available to
				  qualifying customers of sufficient size, in which the amount of money paid by
				  each qualifying customer toward DSM costs is tracked for the customer and made
				  available for use by the customer for approved DSM investments upon application
				  by the customer.
35. "Societal Test" means a cost-effectiveness test of the
				  net benefits of DSM programs that starts with the Total Resource Cost Test, but
				  includes non-market benefits and costs to society.
36. "Staff" means individuals working for the Commission's
				  Utilities Division, whether as employees or through contract.
37. "Therm" means a unit of heat energy equal to 100,000
				  British Thermal Units.
38. "Thermal envelope" means the collection of building
				  surfaces, such as walls, windows, doors, floors, ceilings, and roofs, that
				  separate interior conditioned (heated or cooled) spaces from the exterior
				  environment.
39. "Therm equivalent" means a unit of energy, such as kWh,
				  converted and stated in terms of therms.
40. "Total Resource Cost Test" means a cost-effectiveness
				  test that measures the net benefits of a DSM program as a resource option,
				  including incremental measure costs, incremental affected utility costs, and
				  carrying costs as a component of avoided capacity cost, but excluding
				  incentives paid by affected utilities and non-market benefits to
				  society.