7. Productivity
Reid submits that his participation in the proceeding was productive and will result in benefits to ratepayers that exceed the costs of his participation. Reid contends that he made a substantial contribution to Imperial Valley and other issues. Reid claims that it is reasonable to assume that the resolution of these issues will benefit ratepayers in the future.21
The benefits of Reid's contributions are essentially intangible and, therefore, the monetary benefits cannot be readily and precisely quantified. While it is difficult to quantify the benefits of Reid's contributions, we believe they will exceed the amount awarded to Reid by today's decision.
We approve Reid's requested hours as follows:
Cost Category |
Requested Hours |
Approved Hours |
General Work (reduced 18%) |
17.2 |
14.1 |
Imperial Valley Renewables -Remedial Measures (100%) |
36.7 |
36.7 |
Energy Workshops -Project Viability (100%) -Development Security (100%) |
12.1 |
12.1 |
RPS Plans -PG&E Pilot Program (zero%) -Credit Attributes (100%) -Contract Approval (100%) -Flexible Compliance (100%) |
26.7 |
13.35 |
Total Hours |
92.7 |
76.25 |
This represents a reduction of 18% in general work related to the disallowance of work on the PG&E Pilot Program, as explained above.
21 In support of the asserted benefit, Reid says "[i]f the Commission had allowed the PVC [project viability calculator] to be used as a contract approval tool and this had resulted in an increase of just $1/megawatt-hour [MWh] for a plant which produced 40,000 MW [megawatts] of electricity annually, ratepayers would have paid an additional $40,000 annually, or over twice the compensation that I [Reid] have requested in this proceeding." (Request for Award at 8.) We agree in principle, considering a hypothetical example of $0.001/kWh for a 10 MW plant at a 65% capacity factor (producing 56,940,000 kilowatt-hours per year), yielding a result of $56,940, or over three times Reid's request.
