6. Productivity

D.98-04-059 directed customers to demonstrate productivity by assigning a reasonable dollar value to the benefits of their participation to ratepayers. (D.98-04-059, at 34-35.) The costs of a customer's participation should bear a reasonable relationship to the benefits realized through its participation. This showing assists us in determining the overall reasonableness of the request. CFC states that the most significant benefit coming out of the first phase of this rulemaking is the Commission's determination that traditional rules of ratemaking would apply when utilities requested recovery of smart grid costs, and that stranded costs would not be automatically charged to customers. CFC asserts that to the extent CFC's participation lead to that outcome, its members and all other Californians achieved great success; however, CFC does not identify precise monetary benefits to ratepayers. (Request, at 7.) Nevertheless, we find that, with the reductions made in this decision, CFC's participation was productive.