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Oklahoma Administrative Code (Last Updated: March 11, 2021) |
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TITLE 165. Corporation Commission |
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Chapter 35. Electric Utility Rules |
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Subchapter 41. Demand Programs |
SECTION 165:35-41-3. Definitions
Latest version.
- 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 aDemand 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 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 Planas provided by OAC 150:80; Health Care Authority SoonerCare 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 programs 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.