2. Background
This is the first budget decision the Commission has issued on the large IOU LIEE and CARE budgets since we articulated a major new policy direction for LIEE in D.07-12-051. In that decision,2 we found that LIEE programs, in addition to promoting the quality of life of eligible customers, should serve as resource programs. Resource programs are designed to save energy, limit the need for new power plants, and curb greenhouse gas emissions. In D.07-12-051 and our Plan, we have stated a long-term vision for the LIEE program, as follows:
By 2020, 100% of eligible and willing customers will have received all cost effective Low Income Energy Efficiency measures.3
We thus made clear that the large IOUs' 2009-11 LIEE budget applications should: (1) treat LIEE as a resource program by focusing on energy savings, in addition to customers' quality of life, (2) propose substantial budget increases so as to provide LIEE measures for 25% of eligible and willing customers in the 2009-11 period, (3) emphasize long term and enduring savings, rather than quick fixes, and (4) focus LIEE programs on customers with high energy use, while continuing to serve all eligible low income populations.
To a great extent, the IOUs met our challenge, and proposed budgets and programs that meet the foregoing requirements. However, in some areas, their applications fall somewhat short of these goals, or their plans need further elaboration, and we discuss those issues in detail in this decision.
Prior to the May 2008 deadline for IOUs to file their budget applications, our Energy Division staff conducted two workshops on issues pertinent to the applications - cost effectiveness, program delivery, and ME&O, as ordered in D.07-12-051.4 The IOUs then filed their applications on May 15, 2008. After receiving the IOUs' applications, we received protests from the Commission's Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) and the Solar Alliance,5 and replies from PG&E, SoCalGas, SDG&E and SCE. Thereafter, the assigned Commissioner and Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) sent out six rulings seeking additional information from the IOUs (and in some cases allowing parties to weigh in on the issues the rulings addressed).6 The IOUs served and filed this additional information sequentially, and DRA filed a response to the ALJ's second ruling.
Before the June 24, 2008 Prehearing Conference (PHC), the ALJ allowed parties to file PHC statements,7 and at the PHC, the parties discussed several of the issues raised in the rulings. The ALJ also permitted parties seeking workshops to file information on what they believed the workshops should cover; DRA filed and the Community Action Agency of San Mateo County, Inc., and the Association of California Community and Energy Services (ACCES) emailed a response on June 27, 2008.
On July 16, 2008, the assigned Commissioner and ALJ issued their Scoping Memo, which included within the proceeding's scope all issues the parties raised except two issues: updates of cost effectiveness tests for this budget cycle, and whether to allow IOUs to focus their LIEE programs on customers/communities with high energy usage (which we call tiering/segmentation below). The Scoping Memo determined that D.07-12-051 had already decided the latter issue.
On July 17, 2008, the ALJ and Energy Division staff held a day-long workshop focused on several of the large issues we discuss below.8 The ALJ asked the parties to submit briefs discussing any issue raised in the rulings, Scoping Memo, or workshop on August 1, 2008; DRA, the Greenlining Institute (Greenlining), DisabRA, A W.I.S.H., Community Action Agency of San Mateo County, Inc./ACCES/The East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU)/Maravilla Foundation, Latino Issues Forum (LIF), Energy Efficiency Council, Richard Heath & Associates (RHA), PG&E, SoCalGas, SDG&E and SCE each filed a brief.
This decision is therefore based on a significant written record, as well as the parties' oral input at the PHC and the workshop. While some parties claim we should have held hearings, they did not raise any disputed issue of material fact that required resolution by hearing.
Indeed, most of the parties calling for hearings focused on an issue already decided in D.07-12-051: whether we should have IOUs concentrate at least part of their LIEE programs (including marketing and/or measure installation) on high energy users. In D.07-12-051, we ordered that the IOUs, in their budget applications, "propose specific program participation goals in specific population sectors or segments and budgets designed to meet those goals, consistent with D.06-12-038." D.06-12-038 similarly held that "SCE, SDG&E, PG&E and SoCalGas shall file applications for 2009-11 LIEE and CARE budget authority and program modifications [that] propose specific program participation goals in specific population sectors or segments...."9
Further, the direction that LIEE should be a program designed to meet the state's resource goals - another issue about which several parties call for hearings - first appeared in D.06-12-038 almost two years ago:
For LIEE, we consider a second criterion and one that we have not emphasized as a primary objective in past years, namely that the money spent on LIEE programs should, where possible, promote energy efficiency and thereby contribute to resource adequacy. We have generally considered the main objectives of low income programs to be the provision of services and installations that lower the bills of low income customers and promote their safety and comfort. LIEE has been, for the most part, an equity program. We recognize, however, that LIEE programs benefit all California customers because those programs contribute to a more reliable and environmentally sound energy system.10 (Emphasis added.)
Thus, the time has come and gone for parties opposing tiering or segmentation of customers to weigh in. We now set forth the details of implementation.
2 In D.06-12-038, we presaged many of the decisions we reached in D.07-12-051.
3 California Long-Term Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan, August 2008, p. 25. The Plan is available at http://www.californiaenergyefficiency.com/index.shtml.
4 See Administrative Law Judge's Ruling Scheduling Workshop on Matters Relating to Cost Effectiveness Tests and Models, filed February 7, 2008 in Rulemaking (R.) 07-01-042. Prior to the workshops, numerous parties filed comments on several Energy Division questions related to the workshops.
5 The issue the Solar Alliance raised - whether low income customers wishing solar installations had to already have LIEE measures installed before receiving solar facilities - was resolved prior to this decision. All IOUs concede, and we agree, that low income single family homeowners may receive solar facilities (1) if they have already received all feasible LIEE measures, or (2) if they are on the waiting list to receive such measures.
6 Assigned Commissioner's Ruling Ordering Large Investor-Owned Utilities to Comply With Prior Commission/Commissioner Directives, filed June 13, 2008; Administrative Law Judge's Ruling Seeking Further Information on Large Investor-Owned Utilities' 2009-11 Low income Energy Efficiency/CARE Applications, filed June 17, 2008; Administrative Law Judge's Second Ruling Seeking Further Information on Large Investor-Owned Utilities' 2009-11 Low Income Energy Efficiency/CARE Applications, filed June 25, 2008; and Administrative Law Judge's Third Ruling Seeking Further Information on Large Investor-Owned Utilities' 2009-11 Low Income Energy Efficiency/CARE Applications, filed July 16, 2008. The ALJ issued her fourth and fifth rulings by e-mail. The second and third ALJ rulings explicitly allowed other parties to comment on the issues raised.
7 PG&E, A World Institute for Sustainable Humanity (A W.I.S.H.), Quality Conservation Services, Disability Rights Advocates (DisabRA), DRA, Energy Efficiency Council, Community Action Agency of San Mateo County, The East Los Angeles Community Union and the Maravilla Foundation, Bo Enterprises, and the Solar Alliance filed PHC statements; all but PG&E filed their statements in our predecessor proceeding, R.07-01-042, since closed. We consider those statements, and the other record established in R.07-01-042, in this decision.
8 The Energy Division staff prepared and distributed several handouts at the workshop, available at http://www.liob.org/resultsmt.cfm?meetingtype=Public%20Meeting, and the workshop was also transcribed.
9 D.06-12-038, Ordering Paragraph (OP) 23.
10 Id. p. 7.
