AMI TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY PANEL

AMI TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY PANEL

SDG&E agrees to establish an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) "Technology Advisory Panel", or TAP, drawing from the expertise of regulatory agencies, industry technology experts, other business partners and customer representatives across the spectrum of AMI and AMI-related technologies. The purpose of the TAP is to provide advice and input to SDG&E regarding AMI customer and program needs in a cooperative and collaborative fashion for the professional exchange of ideas, advice and feedback. The TAP also provides a forum for input and collaboration with the stakeholders served by the AMI project and its related deployment. The TAP will work with SDG&E so that SDG&E's AMI design and deployment considers the "best available practices" and "best available technologies" and encourages customer acceptance of the new services enabled by the AMI deployment. Topics of discussion should include AMI synergies and opportunities to provide impetus for other programs and technologies, which may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Staff from the California Energy Commission, the CPUC Energy Division, UCAN, and DRA will be invited to be members of the TAP, but are not required to serve. SDG&E may select additional TAP members, but participation will be voluntary and there will be no formal voting rules or designation of voting and non-voting members. Each TAP member will need to devote the time necessary to meet and confer with SDG&E during bidding design and program implementation and when appropriate, TAP members may provide written comments to SDG&E.

On an annual basis, the TAP will provide written feedback and recommendations in the form of an annual report to SDG&E on SDG&E's progress in deploying AMI and the industry status of AMI-related technologies. SDG&E agrees that the TAP's annual report will be included with SDG&E's annual progress report that will be submitted to the CPUC Energy Division.

TAP members will provide advice and feedback to SDG&E, but will not have any independent decision-making or contracting authority. SDG&E is expected to work with the TAP throughout the AMI process and to meet with the TAP at least bi-annually. While input from the TAP will not necessarily be agreed to by SDG&E (or even among TAP members), the goal of this advisory panel is that it will serve as a forum for introducing new ideas and identifying problems specific to SDG&E's development and deployment of AMI and AMI-related services and, thus, narrow the scope of differences considerably. Also, TAP members will not, in any way, relinquish their rights to participate in other proceedings or comment on SDG&E filings in any CPUC proceeding.

TAP meetings will be open to the public5 and SDG&E will establish a process for noticing these meetings and posting documents to be discussed at the meetings. TAP meetings are intended to facilitate discussion and exchange between TAP members and SDG&E, and accordingly, SDG&E should establish appropriate protocols for obtaining comments from public participants during those meetings, including taking comments or questions from the "floor." The TAP will be in place at least through full deployment of the AMI project (expected to be the end of 2011) and will meet no less than twice per year. The TAP may be extended by mutual consent of the members.

SDG&E will provide TAP members with information on program implementation activities and proposed material program changes, and take other steps to ensure that TAP members have an opportunity to review the information and work with them to improve program implementation. It is SDG&E's responsibility to arrange for meeting space and conference call dial-in numbers, reproduce and distribute meeting materials and provide other administrative support for these meetings to the TAP (and subgroups described below). For those TAP members who are eligible for intervenor compensation, SDG&E and DRA will not oppose any reasonable intervenor compensation requests for their participation in the AMI TAP.

In addition to the TAP process, SDG&E agrees to establish a TAP sub-group of members with non-financial interests to advise SDG&E on bid design, evaluation and administration. TAP sub-group members will have access to confidential vendor bid and pricing information and are required to commit to a non-disclosure agreement as a condition of serving on the TAP sub-group. The TAP sub-group will consist of representatives from DRA staff, the CPUC Energy Division staff, UCAN, and two other members selected by SDG&E. The TAP sub-group will meet on an as-needed basis. The TAP sub-group will advise SDG&E on bid design, evaluation and implementation for those portions of the Settlement that include, but are not limited to;

The formation of this TAP is not precedent setting nor does it imply that this advisory structure applies to any other SDG&E initiative beyond AMI.

DRA and UCAN agree to support expedited review and approval by the Commission of SDG&E's AMI Contract Advice Letter filings consistent with the provisions of the Settlement.

(END OF APPENDIX A)

5 This requirement will not apply to the TAP sub-group meetings relating to the RFP development and bid review process. These TAP sub-group meetings are purposefully intended to exclude participation by individuals or organizations with financial interests involved in the AMI RFP addendum bid or bid selection process.

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