Oklahoma Administrative Code › Title 165 - Corporation Commission › Chapter 35 - Electric Utility Rules › Subchapter 41 - Demand Programs › Section 165:35-41-3 - Definitions

Current through Vol. 41, No. 20, July 1, 2024
The following words and terms, when used in this Subchapter,
				  shall have the following meaning, unless the context clearly indicates
				  otherwise:
"Administrative Cost"
means the expenses
				  incurred in controlling and supporting Demand Programs that are not tied to the
				  marketing and delivery of those programs. These expenses include:
(A) reviewing and selecting Demand Programs in accordance
				  with this section;
(B) providing regular and special reports to the Commission,
				  including reports of Demand Program savings;
(C) a utility's costs for an annual review of Demand Programs
				  or true-up proceeding for cost recovery mechanism;
(D) Supervisory functions performed by Demand Portfolio
				  Manager that are related to supervision of employees and related human resource
				  administration.
"Average customer bill"
means the value derived
				  from the sum of all ratepayer bills in a particular customer sector divided by
				  the number of ratepayers in that sector; i.e., the arithmetic mean. A utility
				  may provide average customer bills for customer rate classes rather than
				  customer sectors if it chooses to do so and clearly identifies the
				  choice.
"Barrier"
means any physical or non-physical
				  necessity, obligation, condition, constraint, or requisite that obstructs or
				  impedes electricity user participation in Demand Programs. Barriers may include
				  but are not limited to language, physical or mental disability , access to
				  capital, educational attainment, utility meter type, economic status, property
				  status, or geography.
"Base line"
means kilowatt-hour energy use,
				  trend in kilowatt-hour energy use, percentage of capacity use over time, trend
				  in percentage of capacity use, and description of conditions affecting such
				  uses and trends prior to implementation of a Demand Program designed to affect
				  particular uses and trends. When evaluating energy efficiency measures
				  implemented or installed as a result of the Demand Programs, the base lines to
				  be used in savings calculations shall be either the performance standard base
				  line (the minimum efficiency prevailing in the market) or a customized, project
				  specific base line. For Demand Programs that replace existing equipment before
				  the end of its expected useful life, savings calculations must incorporate a
				  two-part baseline. First, for the period of the remaining life of the replaced
				  equipment, the baseline is the difference between the energy usage of new
				  equipment and that of the replaced equipment. Second, for the remainder of the
				  life of the new equipment that extends beyond the remaining life of the old
				  equipment, the baseline is the difference between the new equipment and the
				  standard equipment that otherwise would have been purchased at the end of the
				  useful life of the old equipment.
"California Standard Practice Manual"
means The
				  California Standard Practice Manual: Economic Analysis of Demand Side Programs
				  and Projects, 2001 edition, produced by the California Energy Commission and
				  the California Public Utility Commission.
"Cost effective"
and
"cost
				  effectiveness"
mean utilizing a specified amount of money, in a way that
				  delivers the most benefit from available alternative uses, so long as the
				  benefit's value exceeds the money spent.
"Customized opportunity"
means a Demand Program
				  tailored to an individual electricity user's needs, including opportunities for
				  high-volume electricity usage customers to self administer and self fund their
				  own programs.
"Deemed savings"
means an estimate of energy or
				  peak demand savings for a single unit of an installed energy-efficiency or
				  renewable-energy measure that (1) has been developed from data sources and
				  analytical methods that are widely considered acceptable for the measure and
				  purpose, and (2) will be applied to measures that are deployed in significant
				  numbers in similar ways.
"Demand portfolio"
means a collection of energy
				  efficiency and demand response programs offered or proposed by an electric
				  utility; for example, a residential weatherization program, a program to trade
				  ordinary commercial fluorescent ballasts for equipment with a higher efficiency
				  rating, a general education program for energy efficiency, and a program to
				  provide financial inducement for purchase of properly sized industrial motors
				  is a demand portfolio.
"Demand portfolio administrator"
means the
				  utility employee responsible for supervising the utility's energy efficiency
				  and demand response efforts as proposed in compliance with this
				  subchapter.
"Demand program(s)"
means the Energy Efficiency
				  and Demand response programs offered or proposed by an electric utility.
				  Collectively, the Demand Programs make up the company's Demand
				  Portfolio.
"Demand response"
means any load management
				  program in which a utility offers electricity users payments or other
				  inducement to reduce their demand for electricity for specified periods of
				  time.
"Education"
means any formal program, training,
				  or activity designed to raise awareness of, and participation in company
				  specific Demand Programs or increase general knowledge concerning energy
				  savings opportunities and efficiency topics. These programs may include
				  communication efforts designed to reach customers with energy efficiency
				  information through a variety of mediums, including but not limited to,
				  television, radio, print and web-based media.
"Electricity user"
means a real property
				  freeholder or leaseholder at a specific location who consumes energy at that
				  location, regardless of whether the consumer receives an energy bill directly
				  from a utility.
"Energy efficiency"
means reducing electricity
				  consumption on the customer's side of the meter while achieving substantially
				  the same level of end-use service.
"Evaluation, measurement, and verification or
				  EM&V"
means a systematic, objective study conducted periodically to
				  authenticate, assess, and report how well a Demand Program is achieving its
				  objectives, including identification and quantification of inputs, outputs,
				  outcomes, and unintended effects.
"EM&V Costs"
means the costs associated with
				  performance of studies and activities intended to determine the actual savings
				  and other effects from Demand Programs.
"Free rider"
means a program participant who
				  would have implemented the program measure or practice in the absence of the
				  Demand Program. A free rider can be total, in which the participant's activity
				  would have completely replicated the program measure; partial, in which the
				  participant's activity would have partially replicated the program measure; or
				  deferred, in which the participant's activity would have completely replicated
				  the program measure, but at a time after which the program measure was
				  implemented.
"Fuel switching"
means changing from natural gas
				  to electricity or from electricity to natural gas for a particular end-use
				  service or installing electric heating devices in new construction where
				  natural gas service is available or can be economically made available. It does
				  not include installation of any device that relies primarily on on-site
				  renewable energy, such as, but not limited to, a solar water heater, geothermal
				  heat pump, or biomass gas-powered furnace.
"Goal"
means a target to be achieved by a
				  utility's demand portfolio. A goal may be expressed in kilowatts,
				  kilowatt-hours, percentage reduction or limitation, years that anticipated
				  construction of utility plant is delayed, and/or another quantifiable
				  measurement approved by the Commission. When determining whether a goal is met,
				  reductions or increases attributable to weather and economic activity will not
				  be counted.
"Gross savings"
means the values reported by an
				  electric utility after the Demand Program activities have been completed, but
				  prior to the time an independent, third-party evaluation of the savings is
				  performed. As with projected savings estimates, these values may utilize
				  results of prior evaluations and/or values in technical reference manuals.
				  However, they are adjusted from projected savings estimates by correcting for
				  any known data errors and actual installation rates and may also be adjusted
				  with revised values for factors such as per-unit savings values, operating
				  hours, and savings persistence rates. Gross savings can be indicated as first
				  year, annual demand or energy savings, and/or lifetime energy or demand savings
				  values.
"Hard-to-reach customers"
means
(A) Residential electricity users who rent their residences
				  from persons other than kin related to the third degree of affinity or
				  consanguinity, trusts operated by and for the benefit of the users, or the
				  users' legal guardians,
(B) Commercial electricity users who rent their business
				  property from persons other than the users' owners, parent companies,
				  subsidiaries of their parent companies, their own subsidiaries, or trusts
				  operated by and for the benefit of the same;
(C) Residential or commercial electricity users who
				  traditionally fail to engage in energy efficiency or demand response programs
				  because of one or more severe barriers beyond those experienced by average
				  residential or commercial customers in a utility's service area.
"High-volume electricity user"
means a customer
				  within a utility company's service territory whose annual consumption is 15
				  million kWh of electricity or greater regardless of the number of meters or
				  service locations.
"Incentive"
means a sum of money a utility may
				  be allowed to recover--in addition to program costs and lost net revenues
				  Incentives shall be based on the utility's verified achievements savings from
				  the Demand Portfolio for the previous program year and shall be calculated as
				  described in
				  165:35-41-8.
"Inducement"
means anything of value offered by
				  a utility to encourage an electricity user or trade ally to engage in Demand
				  Programs approved pursuant to this subchapter. While inducements can include a
				  variety of costs, direct payments to customers or trade allies on behalf of
				  customers shall make up the majority of total inducement costs.
"Lost net revenue"
means income from the retail
				  sale of electricity forgone by a utility directly resulting from the success of
				  its demand portfolio, less expenses the utility was not required to pay by
				  forgoing the sales. Lost net revenue shall be calculated using verified net
				  savings, shall exclude customer service charge revenues (non-volumetric
				  revenues), and shall exclude revenues collected from riders with annual
				  true-ups.
"Low-income customer"
means a residential
				  electricity user who provides proof to a utility that the user has been
				  determined by the appropriate authority to be eligible to receive services
				  through the Oklahoma Department of Commerce Weatherization Assistance Program
				  State Plan as provided by OAC 150:80; Health Care Authority Sooner Care Choice
				  or fee-for-service programs, as provided by OAC 317:25, 35, and 40; or
				  Department of Human Services Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, State
				  Supplemental Payment, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, Food Stamp, or Refugee
				  Resettlement programs as provided by OAC 340:10, 15, 20, 50, and 60,
				  respectively, or similar program.
"Market potential study"
means an evaluation
				  that assesses customer population base lines, customer needs, target customer
				  populations, and how best to address these issues.
"Market transformation"
means the strategic
				  process of influencing customer population and trade ally's decision-making
				  that creates lasting change in customer behavior by removing barriers or
				  exploiting opportunities to accelerate adoption of cost-effective energy
				  efficiency as a matter of standard practice.
"Measure"
means the equipment, materials, or
				  actions that are installed or used within a Demand Program that results in
				  measurable or verifiable savings; for example, a measure would include caulking
				  around windows or weather stripping around doors to prevent heat loss.
"Net benefits"
equal the difference between
				  total benefits and total costs as calculated for cost-effectiveness. The
				  economic objective of Demand Resource portfolios is to maximize net benefits. A
				  Demand Portfolio is cost-effective if it yields positive net benefits.
"Net savings"
means the total change in load
				  that is directly attributable to a Demand Program or the Demand Portfolio. This
				  change in energy and/or demand use shall include, implicitly or explicitly,
				  consideration of appropriate factors. These factors shall include free
				  ridership, participant and non-participant spillover and induced market
				  effects.
"Net-to-gross"
means a factor representing net
				  program savings divided by gross program savings that is applied to gross
				  program impacts to convert them into net program impacts. The factor may be
				  made up of a variety of factors that create differences between gross and net
				  savings, commonly considering the effects of free riders and spillover.
"Peak demand"
means a utility system's maximum
				  annual customer-driven electricity requirement, measured in kilowatts.
"Peak shaving"
means reducing demand for
				  electricity during high-use hours.
"Program"
means an organized set of activities
				  or measures directed toward the common purpose of energy efficiency or demand
				  response that a utility undertakes or proposes to undertake to reduce peak
				  demand or future growth in energy or capacity demand; for example, a general
				  offer to assist homeowners in weatherizing their homes is a program.
"Program cost"
means the expenditures, including
				  expenditures paid to a third -party to deliver a program, incurred by a utility
				  to achieve capacity, energy, and peak demand savings through Demand Programs.
				  Expenditures made by customers or third parties are not included. Programs
				  costs must be reported in nominal dollars in the year in which they are
				  incurred, regardless of when the savings occur. The utility's demand program
				  costs are all Administrative Costs, Education costs, labor, equipment,
				  inducement, marketing, monitoring, measurement and evaluation, and other
				  program delivery expenditures incurred by the utility for operation of the
				  Demand Programs, regardless of whether the costs are expensed or
				  capitalized.
"Program implementer"
means the person who puts
				  a Demand Program into practical effect.
"Projected incentives"
means the amount of
				  estimated annual incentives calculated at the time the Demand Portfolio is
				  submitted to the Commission for initial approval, or subsequent modification,
				  of the Demand Portfolio.
"Projected savings"
means the values reported by
				  an electric utility prior to the implementation of the Demand Programs. These
				  are typically estimates of savings prepared for Program and/or Demand Portfolio
				  design or planning purposes. These values are based on pre-program or Demand
				  Portfolio estimates of factors such as per-unit savings values, operating
				  hours, Net-to-Gross ratios, installation rates, and savings persistence rates.
				  These values can be indicated as first year, annual demand or energy savings,
				  and/or lifetime energy or demand savings values. These values can also be
				  indicated as Gross savings and/or Net savings. Projected savings are reflected
				  in the goal reduction as set in this subchapter.
"Research and development"
means a planned
				  activity aimed at discovering new knowledge with the hope of developing new or
				  improved energy efficiency processes, products, or services and the translation
				  of these research findings into a plan or design for new or improved energy
				  efficiency processes, products, and services.
"Savings"
means a reduction in the rate of
				  growth of energy use, as measured in kilowatt-hours, or capacity addition, as
				  measured in kilowatts, or peak demand, as measured in kilowatts.
"Spillover"
means the reductions in energy
				  consumption and/or demand caused by the presence of a Demand Program beyond the
				  Demand Program-related gross savings of the participants and without financial
				  or technical assistance from the program. Spillover can be applied to
				  participants, consumers directly participating in a Demand Program, and/or
				  non-participants.
"Standard offer"
means a Demand Program
				  available to a group of customers or customers generally on the same terms and
				  without customization.
"Trade allies"
means contractors, retailers,
				  skilled laborers, service providers, and wholesale distributors who support
				  Demand Programs through sale or installation of goods and services.
"Verified savings"
means values reported by an
				  electric utility after review by an independent third party evaluator. The
				  third party evaluator shall be chosen by the utility and such costs shall be
				  determined to be a Program Cost. These values should reflect all adjustments,
				  including corrections for any known data errors and actual installation rates,
				  and should also be adjusted by revised values for known factors such as
				  per-unit savings values, operating hours, savings persistence rates, and net to
				  gross adjustments.
Added at 26 Ok Reg 1849,
				  eff 6-25-09