February 26, 2008
Attendees: Judy Albertson, Paul Allen, John Anderson, Addison Bain, Tommy Boroughs, Griff Carrison, Pete DeNapoli, Steve Gorman, C.T. Hsu, Jonathan Hurwitch, Robert Jenkins, Amy Long, Alexander Mack, Louis Rotundo, M.J. Soileau, Mickie Valente
Set the playing field and let experts play the game. That’s
what the FEC goal is.
2007 recommendations to Fla. Legislature
* RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard)
* All 3rd party ownership of Generation
* Avoid cost premium on renewable energy from utility (recommendation
#46)
* Instead of solar on every roof, what about a Solar Park
on every 200 homes; i.e., Babcock
Ranch.
*In 3-5 years the cost of cellulose extraction out of plant
will be more affordable as a fuel source.
* 40-46% of gas emission in Florida is in transportation.
Decoupling (performance based ratemaking)
In public utility regulation, decoupling refers to the disassociation
of a utility’s profits from its sales of the energy commodity.
Instead, a rate of return is aligned with meeting revenue targets,
and rates are trued up or down to meet the target at the end
of the adjustment period. This makes the utility indifferent
to selling less product and improves the ability of energy
efficiency and distributed generation to operate within
the utility environment.
Ideally, utilities should be rewarded based on how well
they meet their customers' energy service needs. However,
most current rate design instead places the focus on commodity
sales, tying a distribution company's recovery of fixed
costs directly to its commodity sales.
In order to motivate utilities to consider all the options
when planning and making resource decisions on how to meet
their customers' needs, the sales-revenue link in current
rate design must be broken. Breaking that link between the
utility's commodity sales and revenues removes both the incentive
to increase electricity sales and the disincentive to run effective
energy efficiency programs or invest in other activities that
may reduce load. Decision-making then refocuses on making
least-cost investments to deliver reliable energy services
to customers even when such investments reduce throughput.
The result is a better alignment of shareholder and customer
interests to provide for more economically and environmentally
efficient resource decisions.
As an added benefit, breaking the sales-revenue link
streamlines the regulatory process for rate adjustments. Contention
over sales forecasts consumes extensive time in every rate
case. If the sales-revenue link is broken, these forecasts
carry no economic weight, so the incentive to game forecasts
of electricity sales is removed and rate cases become less
adversarial.
Look at Cap & Trade for Emissions (Carbon Credits)
Building performance & solar energy management – J.
Fenton presentation Installing Energy Efficiency
Equipment first, then renewables.
HERS (Home Energy Rating
System) – Energy Star
Energy Star Homes are 85
or less. Typical home 150
Standard
home 68 Net
Zero Home 0
Serve to preserve- Feb 19,
2008 –Governors top priorities. Dollars to Solar $50 mil, Biofuels-$2.5
Mill, R&D $7.5 Mill and $100 Mill in Incentives.
Orange County Convention
Center putting in a 1 MW solar PV system
Renewable Energy Technologies
Grant Program. – Alexander Mack (only 7 people in the Florida Energy
Office (salary paid by Feds).
$12.5 million -- 139 proposals
evaluated for solar. 183 in the queue still.
$3.5 million gone on Dec.
19th 2006/07 solar funding. $1.2 million in the queue for 2008/08 already
gone, balance is $2.3 million?
Gov. Christ recommending
$10 million on July 1st minus estimated $3.5 million that was already gone.
SOLAR AMERICA INITIATIVE
Federal dollars are not really there for solar; state is where
to look for this funding initiative.
U of F hustling to get funding in some Solar Research. They
have received a $20 million grant for Biofuel research.
Proposed legislation:
Net Metering – HB 0457; HB 0557
Energy Efficiency- SB0308; SB0312 ;HB 0560;SB0562;HB0023
Financial Incentives- SB0434; SB0962
Governance -SB0412; SB 0414; SB 0416; SB 0418
** NOTES :