Notice of PURPA Consideration and Request for Written Comments.
Central Alabama Electric Cooperative (the Cooperative or CAEC) is a member-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperative headquartered in Prattville, providing retail electric service in the counties of Autauga, Bibb, Chilton, Coosa, Dallas, Elmore, Lowndes, Perry, Talladega and Tallapoosa in the State of Alabama. CAEC hereby gives public notice regarding the process to be followed by it in implementing the statutory directives in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007), which amended the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA). EISA 2007 established new Federal standards under Section 111(d) of PURPA, requiring electric utilities with annual retail sales of electric energy exceeding 500 million kilowatt hours to consider whether to adopt four new standards.
Written comments regarding these standards will be accepted from CAEC Members through the close of business day on Jan. 15, 2010. Written comments can be sent to the Cooperative’s web site at www.caec.coop, or mailed to Central Alabama Electric Cooperative, Attn: PURPA Comments, P.O. Box 681570, Prattville, AL 36068, or submitted at any of the four Service Centers (Clanton, Prattville, Rockford, or Wetumpka). All written comments will be made available to Members by Jan. 22, 2010, and an additional thirty (30) days will be allowed for further comments, culminating on Feb. 22, 2010.
The four new PURPA Standards are summarized below:
INTEGRATED RESOURCE PLANNING
Central Alabama Electric Cooperative will cooperate with its power supplier when the power supplier wishes –
(A) To integrate energy efficiency resources into resource plans; and
(B) To adopt policies establishing cost effective energy efficient rates.
II. RATE DESIGN MODIFICATIONS TO PROMOTE ENERGY EFFICIENT INVESTMENTS
(A) The Cooperative offers time of use rates and a commercial coincident rate to the extent allowed by the wholesale power rates of its power supplier in order to align rate incentives with the delivery of cost effective energy efficiency and the Cooperative promotes energy efficiency investments by its members.
(B) The Cooperative will consider:
(i) Adopting rate designs that encourage energy efficiency for each member class to the extent feasible under the wholesale power rate structure to which it is subject and will include timely recovery of energy efficiency related costs to the Cooperative.
(ii) Subject to the possibility of change at a later date, the Cooperative will continue to promote the peak shaving water heating load control program, Touchstone Energy home certification (including home energy audits), GeoThermal heat pump programs, dual fuel heat pump programs, new efficient electric water heater programs, manufactured home efficiency programs, compact fluorescent lighting programs, the Conserve 101 energy efficiency education programs and other programs that reduce both peak demands for energy as well as promote energy efficiency. The Cooperative will also seek to educate home owners about federal and state incentives that make energy efficiency improvements more affordable.
(C) The Cooperative will continue to consider rate design modifications that promote energy efficiency investments
but declines to implement any additional actions at the present time.
III. CONSIDERATION OF SMART GRID
INVESTMENTS
(A) The Cooperative has installed a system wide advanced metering infrastructure ("smart meters") and is in the process of installing a supervisory control and data acquisition system ("SCADA") which enhances the reliability and efficiency of the Cooperative’s system. The Cooperative’s power supplier has also made significant investments in smart grid hardware and software.
(B) As additional investments are made in smart grid technologies, the Cooperative will consider investments in
additional qualified smart grid systems based on total costs, cost effectiveness, improving reliability,
security and system performance.
(C) Since the Cooperative has no source of funding other than that provided through the sale of electricity to pay for
smart grid or any other types of investments, it will plan to recover from its members any capital, operating
expenditure or other costs relating to the deployment of any qualified smart grid system components and to
recover the remaining book value costs of any equipment rendered obsolete by the deployment of such smart grid
investments.
IV. SMART GRID INFORMATION
(A) This standard contemplates the provision of direct access by members to information in a real time basis
concerning their usage of electricity and the costs of such usage at various times, as well as projections of day
ahead price information. The Cooperative currently allows members to view their previous daily usage information via the internet. The Cooperative is currently investigating ways to allow members to view hourly usage information via the internet. At the present, it is believed that the costs of installing the equipment necessary to enable a member to have real time data and day ahead projections would exceed any savings when viewed on a system wide basis. Consequently, the Cooperative declines to adopt any portion of this standard at this time.
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