I Katie, it's good to see you.
I think we're just waiting for a quorum. We had a note from some of our members that they're stuck in traffic and may be up to 10 minutes.
Thanks for the update. I'm just testing my audio.
We can hear you.
I call on the meeting of the Central Coast Community Energy Community Advisory Council to order.
Clerk Bale, would you like to do a roll call?
Thank you, Chair.
Number one, is abstain.
Domain.
Violent.
Domain host is abstain.
It is abstain.
Johnson is abstain, the clash.
Absent.
Morten.
President.
Statement.
Here.
To it's a bookie.
Here.
Vice your data.
Here.
We have a quote.
Thank you very much.
I'd like to invite everyone to stand with me and pledge the flag.
Thank you.
Do we have any corrections or additions to our agenda today?
There has been a request to just jog things around.
And move up our discussion on, which one was that?
Catherine, that we're moving forward?
The proposal, Chair.
Sorry, is to move the work plan presentation before the CEO report, because we'll have an outside presenter.
Item five, moving up before item four.
Do we have any public comment on items not on our agenda today?
No public comments, Chair.
Thank you.
Does anybody have want to pull anything off our consent calendar or make a motion to approve?
Chair, I recommend we put the, I mean, since we put the first 140 pages of the agenda packet in the consent calendar,
it's just put the whole thing in the consent calendar.
We've done a lot quicker.
Overruled.
Okay.
I moved accepting the consent calendar.
We have a motion.
Do we have a second?
Second.
Thank you.
Do we need a roll call vote on that?
Yes, that's a clerk file.
Could you please do a roll call vote?
Yes, thank you, Chair.
Alan?
Yes.
Alan?
I.
Byron?
I.
Nicklish?
I.
Nathan?
I.
Thada?
I.
That, then?
Yes.
To it's a vote key?
Yes.
By strategist?
Aye.
Chair, Kate.
Aye.
So we will be moving then to the next item.
Hmm.
Is the work plan presentation item number five on our agenda?
Yes.
Thank you, Chair.
So our presentation on the community advisory councils fiscal year 2023 24 work plan includes an overview and discussion on battery monitoring in support of residential load shifting.
So with that, I would like to welcome Chris Cook, our director of energy programs to present this item.
Can you hear me?
Oh, that's better.
Great.
So as I mentioned, I am Chris Cook director of energy programs at 3C and this afternoon I will be giving a presentation on the demand response work plan.
So at 3C our power for good has a three-tier approach.
First we source clean renewable energy and then we utilize that clean and renewable energy for electrification programs.
So later do ag building and transport.
And then finally now we have a demand response element with load, shifting and shaving.
So this presentation I will be giving an overview related to several components of demand response.
First the need for battery storage demand response from a high level state perspective.
Next status of 3C's battery storage demand response pilot project.
Then next steps with battery storage and load shifting.
And finally a presentation from texture that does platforming, that has a platform analyzing load shifting.
So first from that high level state perspective.
Kiso is the California Independent System Operators.
And what they do is they manage the high voltage lines and also the a wholesale energy market.
And so they look at it kind of from a state level perspective and you can go on their website and you can see what's happening real time with power throughout the kiso system.
And this graph that you see on the screen right here I took from May 22nd so two weeks before today.
I think is a good representation of what's happening right now.
This is specific to renewables and the trends there.
So the blue line that's wind and you can see there's some variation there it is a little bit intermittent.
It's fluctuates from approximately 5,000 megawatts to 2000 megawatts but it's not necessarily time dependent.
However when you look at solar that orange or yellow line that one added those red dash lines at 6am and 8pm as everybody knows right now that's approximately sunrise and sunset.
Well before 6am you have no power being produced from solar and after 8pm you have no power also but in the middle of the day you have approximately 17,000 megawatts being produced from solar.
So that's you know a significant part of our renewable energy being provided for the system.
And what that means in terms of overall supply trends you can see the part and green here of the graph again I added those red dash lines for reference.
You know the before 6am after 8pm you have that wind that's renewable but then the solar takes over in the midday and you see that abundance of renewable supply available with the solar and the wind combined.
And in fact you can see on the graph it dips down it has a surplus slightly of power available.
But then you look at the evening time where there's the peak in the day and the solar is going away.
So you have more demand and you have less supply of solar and that's when they need to ramp up other generations sources such as gas or imports to be able to make up that difference.
But there is also another component in there that light kind of tan tan brown at the bottom and you can see that is charging during that midday time when you have that renewable you have the lower cost energy.
And then it's discharging at those peak times when you're more reliant on non renewables there's more demand there's more cost.
So you're able to shift that load and this is one where you see that steep incline of the peak and the need for other generation sources that's been commonly referred to as the duck curve.
And now we're actually hearing it being referred to as the canyon because there's so much solar midday and then having to adjust so quickly the canyon is now what people are referencing.
Here's another view from Kisos website on May 22 from CO2 emissions standpoint you can see you know that's there's a direct correlation there where when the solar is is no longer available.
The emissions go up with it imports and gases being now being used.
And then from a price map perspective again from this website I just took from 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. just with those two time differences you can't really it's hard to see on this screen but the medium price.
Tripled in those in that time between 3 and 5 p.m. and if you look at it at noon sometimes it can go negative in price and then you look at it in the evening it can get significantly higher.
So you can have that energy arbitrage where if you have a battery system what you can do is actually at certain situations midday you could be paid to charge the battery and then be paid significantly higher to discharge it.
So there's a price benefit along with the renewables and other aspects.
So as as I mentioned load shifting the shifting of load with battery storage has multiple benefits using cleaner power lower costs for everyone and more reliability for the grid and resiliency for customers if they are say a PSPS PG and he event there's an outage.
They also have that battery and a commercial or residential or other location to be able to use this backup. So there's still a clear need for more battery storage.
In terms of our own demand response pilot we had an RFP that was sent out we got four proposals back for respondents. Two of those we took forward with interviews one was demand response providers.
DRPs were enrolled to be enrolled in a marketplace pricing platform so being able to pull on demand response providers when needed in this in this marketplace platform.
And then another was behind the meter virtual power plant with incentive plants so this is more of a battery storage concept with being able to activate discharge charge at various times and incentivizing.
For the panel it was made up of six staff of 3C from four different departments and overall it had a conclusion that these proposals all had clear drawbacks.
So one of those was that was that looking at the cost of of the different pilots a lot of cases the cost of the pilots didn't necessarily outweigh the cost to the customer didn't necessarily outweigh the benefits of the pilot itself.
And then for the battery storage ones there was limitations in terms of say a single battery manufacturer being able to be used so having potential participation limits related to.
No different battery manufacturers and that could limit customer participation too.
And then in terms of demand response itself it would be hard to validate that there's not double counting.
So what that could mean is if kisos relying on a certain demand response.
Low say a load shifting from the grid and that's not able to be achieved well then you know they have to be curtailments or other things happen to be able to make that happens we have to have assurance that what we're saying we're going to do we can provide to be able to meet the needs.
But at the same time as mentioned before there's really clear benefits of demand response particularly as they relate to battery storage with all the benefits that we talked about so.
So we do feel that it's important to keep pursuing this and and realize the the demand that demand response pilot so what we're going to be doing to further this is we're looking to refine the demand response pilot RFP scope so this will ensure that the proposals we get in are comparable we can have competitive.
And then also that the scope is one where every proposal, if it meets the scope, would meet grid and customer needs.
And then to help refine this RFP scope, we're launching a new battery rebate program, allowing staff to further analyze battery storage for load shifting.
So this battery rebate program, this is one that would be focused on load shifting with residential customer rebates.
And then for that, what we would be doing is we would be discharging at least 50% of the battery during peak hours.
So really making sure that those batteries discharge and shift load during the critical times when it's needed.
And that will allow us to realize a lot of the benefits that are there, but also track the load being shifted.
And that provides a number of ways for potential analysis for us moving forward.
We can look at participation rates with this battery rebate program.
We can see specifically for low income what the reach is there, how we're doing with that customer base.
We can see incentive methods, if front end rebates versus long term incentives, whether front end rebates can drive the participation rates.
And then looking at overall load shifting impact, if we can get a good start with a battery rebate program in terms of load shifting, being able to have a sense of how that could six scale and the overall benefits that could be achieved.
So with that, looking specifically at the load shifting impact, we did invite texture to speak, they have a platform that can track energy systems and in our case, you know, looking at batteries and load shifting and being able to quantify that.
So with that, I'd like to pass it over to Eric and maybe Nicholas with texture.
Thanks Chris, I could have to do everyone, I appreciate the introduction.
My name is Eric Roth, I worked at a company called texture.
Our kind of platform is really focused on data infrastructure.
So just by way of background, on the head of business development and texture,
I could make unfortunately the two thoughts that could make it tonight.
But he sends a few words.
My background just before we move on, I've been energy about 10 years, actually started as an attorney and all kind of focused on the demand side.
And for the last seven kind of been focused on technology that can help.
Both customers and companies understand their energy usage more thoroughly and that's what texture comes in.
So pushing to the next slide, what we do is pretty simple.
The mission of our company, if you go to the next slide, is we help energy companies be more data driven.
And that includes installers of assets that include companies who manage assets and then of course utilities and folks like PC.
So we met 3C and Chris about two months ago when he was considering this program and we've been in conversation sense.
So very honored and pleased to present what we do, just a couple slides.
If you move to the next slide, what we do is pretty simple.
We're a platform to view and track your energy network.
And so what that means is we have a platform that looks like a platform you can engage with where you can view.
Individual homeowners and once they give permission.
To connect whatever DER they might have whether it's an electric vehicle, a thermostat, solar inverter or a battery.
You can view that asset in real time.
You can understand whether it's plugged in, whether it's charging.
If a battery, you can understand whether it's just actually any whether it's story.
I thought it was that you can understand set points.
And the idea is that organizations like 3C and others are able to view.
All of the customers understand very specifically that assets and DERs they have in their home.
And understand the real time implications of those assets, whether it's an EV or a battery.
And all of this is powered by the end user, the homeowners permission.
So if you go to the next slide.
So what we are is a data platform.
What we're not is a demand response company or a VPP.
So we don't compete with companies like own connect or see power or voltage.
Somebody's demand response companies that actually may have responded to the RFP.
We're truly an diagnostic data platform that just allows the data to flow and be visualized on our platform.
We also don't monetize the patient.
So we don't charge based on connecting the device.
Charge based on a traditional software model of a platform fee.
We also don't build product in applications.
And so what our customers do or the end user does with the battery, for example, is totally up to them.
We don't have any perspective or interpretation of when a battery should discharge or store.
That's entirely up to our companies and the end users.
And so just to give you a sense of what the platform looks like.
This is kind of what our customers see.
So this gives you an opportunity to view all of the customers that have connected with the battery.
Understand very specifically they're addressed when they added the battery.
Kind of consumption of the battery production of a solar storage or solar area unit.
For example, or of course the battery production.
And if you look on the right, you can kind of click into the specific address or site as we call it.
And understand very specifically the utility.
But also market.
And we can't marry that information with energy consumption and storage.
Data.
We also marry that with emissions data that we kind of put on the platform for our customers to understand.
The initial impact of contaminant.
And that allows our customers to view individual sites.
You can go to the next slide.
So the really do this.
It's a pretty simple process.
All of our customers rely on the end user or the homeowner to actually get permission and allow the data to flow.
And so once a customer of ours has connected.
An interface battery.
The data will flow, but the connection process is a pretty simple process where if they've installed an interface battery.
And our customers send them an email link.
And then they go through this connect flow.
And all they do is to put a simple information.
It's your address.
It's what is your specific battery.
So whether it's in phase or solar edge or Franklin.
And then they slide into their existing account.
And they give us permission to view the data in real time.
And that's it.
And so what that actually looks like on the platform.
This is an example of a battery view.
And this is an example customer.
You can see again.
Very specifically.
Customer information in terms of home address.
Email where they're located on the grid.
You can see what devices they can permission to view on our platform.
And then on the right, you're able to understand and track battery storage and dispatch.
So the bottom right and kind of the grade.
Orc is a little bit of a Christmas speaking about this.
The battery.
Stories throughout the day and then discharge is at night.
And so.
It, you know, as the day goes on, the battery storage more and then the amount of a discharge at night.
And you can track that.
And if the goal of the platform is really to allow our customers to see this.
Individual, but also.
Company why.
And so you can use our platform to view analytics.
Do you analytics not just individual customers, but you're an entire number?
That's all.
Please strike more platform.
I have to answer any questions, but I'd appreciate the opportunity.
Great.
Thank you, Eric.
And you've got...
With that, we're to our recommendations.
So this memorandum provides the CAC overview of three C's,
fiscal year 2023, 2024 work plan,
the presentation on battery monitoring and supportive residential load shifting.
So...
Thank you.
Open it up to questions from the council.
Lou?
Thank you.
Thank you for the presentation, Chris.
Just so I understand this idea would be that the residents
would have lithium batteries in their homes,
and they would sell back to the grid.
Have you considered centralizing, would it make more sense,
to centralize and have a battery farms, maybe in crystal planes,
near the topest solar plant, or something similar to that,
where you could bond the capital costs,
based on the pricing differential between daytime and nighttime.
Versus decentralized, where you'd have less control.
Thank you, Dr. Ballman.
It is the exact right question, and on the power supply space,
that is exactly what we're doing.
So we just did an RFO.
We'll mention it in a moment here,
where we've solicited developer proposals
for energy storage and generation,
but that larger scale sort of bang for your buck opportunity
to whether it is utilize that battery for its capacity.
It's a resource adequacy,
or to arbitrage the energy cost of low energy
dollars in the morning.
That's more of a power supply effort that's done in front of the meter.
The effort here with the demand response is less about meeting
or load serving entity requirements,
but empowering individual customers to be able
to control their own consumption and energy usage,
that we'll have a benefit in the overall grid area,
but very much at the margins,
not at the scale that front of the meter can do,
or frankly at the price point,
which is one of the reasons that the recommendation was
not to move forward with one of the A proposal from the RFP we ran,
because it's not cost effective at this point to do so.
And Chris, I'll let you follow up on this,
but I think what the proposal is is pair of residential demand,
or residential battery incentive program,
which we'll talk about under a different item,
with the learning opportunity that texture provides.
For those that don't know,
we currently rely on the IOUs,
to provide us metering and customer management services.
So we get data only through the IOUs,
and only on interval basis and not in a real time basis.
Getting the opportunity at a customer election,
so you are going slowly customer by customer
to see how customers are using and consuming energy in real time,
is light years ahead of where we currently are with the IOUs.
And then that learning helps us to inform how can we design
a demand response program that can be cost effective.
So that's the longer term goal with what we want to accomplish.
And Chris, happy to fill you out onto that.
Yeah, I think you said it well. Thank you.
Yeah, I was curious too,
if you've rolled this out in another area of community
and kind of what problems you ran into or successes that you've had with that too.
Because I would think that would have to be bundled with the rebate
or the battery backup because you're relying on the end user
to enroll themselves.
And I think there's already kind of maybe an uncomfortableness
with releasing that information.
So the incentive would be the battery rebate
coupled with obviously the enrollment into the program.
But I did know texture had seen something like this
in another community.
You know, in another region of the country,
if you could speak to that, that would be great.
Yeah, great question.
We haven't engaged specifically with another program with these parameters
in other parts of the country.
The way we tend to work is customers with a lot of themselves,
and so we rely on our customers and companies to actually do the marketing.
So that would be up to 3CE in this case.
Yeah.
And I would add that the front end rebate is a model that's been done
by other CCAs that we've seen and they have gotten participation in it.
And one of the things we'll be looking at is ensuring that they enroll
in a load shift tracking platform before the rebate is given,
because it's really important to us to be able to have that information
to quantify and refine what we're doing.
And just real quick, so that would be demand response
would also be included in that as well.
So demand response, then the data management,
and then the battery rebate, would it all be together?
Yeah, so what I would say is, so the battery rebate program is a separate program
that we'll be presenting on, but it's used to refine for our demand response pilot
that we'll be doing.
So when we do a future demand response pilot,
we'll absolutely be tracking any load shifting or other things that happen.
But the battery rebate program is kind of its own standalone load
shifting with tracking, so we would be doing that with a future demand response
pilot we'd have to be able to do, like we mentioned,
ensure that we're not double counting our demand response and other aspects
that we want to make sure we're accurately tracking.
But for now, it's more with the actual battery rebate program.
If that makes...
And if I could also add that, you know, in speaking with other CCAs that have run demand response programs, where they have direct control of batteries and in our research, what we found is that the customer reticenses really about giving over control of that battery.
But just in terms of tracking the use, I think there's much more receptivity, especially if it is tied to the incentive of helping to pay for the purchase and installation of the battery.
So it would be end phase batteries only. Is that right?
Does that, because the technology with those different reporting capabilities of the different batteries, I know it's changing it like light speed.
Yeah, and I didn't know if there were going to be other battery manufacturers that would be a part of it to just from a cost standpoint.
I don't know, Eric, if you wanted to speak to the availability of safe telemetry on battery storage and how you work with the manufacturers.
Yeah, great question.
We are advice agnostic. So we're able to integrate with kind of a reading, no VMs, we worked with some of folks on three CE to identify what those are in the service territory.
We claim we are integrated with n-phase test solar edG, which tends to be kind of it's an 8020 in batteries.
But that tend to be the reading manufacturers, our platform, we don't reverse engineer any of these connections we work directly with manufacturers.
So those are the top we integrate with today, but we're very open to integrated with more future.
And one comment about probably necessarily apologize, but other CCAs doing this. We've had conversations with leaning on that, not sure if familiar with that.
That organization that would be executive director last week to kind of talk about this type of monitoring for other CCAs.
So other folks are thinking about it, but haven't we haven't implemented a program like this yet, but it is out there.
And if I just want to stress the importance of what Eric was just sharing that technology or device agnostic stance, one of the challenges in the RFP proposal is that they are very device oriented.
So they have there preferred technology that they work with.
That limits the number of batteries that solar installers can work with. So from an installer standpoint, it's very limiting.
Whether they could utilize our proposed battery program effectively, because they have their deals in place and their supply contracts in place.
The ability to work across multiple platforms, even if it's not 100% of every platform that's going to be utilized, is a really significant development
that texture adds that a lot of other monitoring areas are still trying to catch up to.
But it's really significant because it's allowing customers to make decisions about what technology they want to utilize, what installer they want to utilize, and it doesn't limit what they're going to be utilizing.
Council Member Johnson.
Thank you, sir. We really, traffic was terrible.
Light years ahead, this kind of data collection, light years ahead, you said.
Mr. Shaw, do we have to share the data with PG&E?
Technically, PG&E will have the data, because, again, they are building in customer agent.
So I would consider PG&E a partner as we move forward in anything that we're going to be doing.
But if we were to get to that step, we'd have to have some discussions about how we're going to do that, but we have all shared customers in PG&E has the data.
They won't have access to the unique user interface that texture might add, but PG&E has more data access than we do.
And would you anticipate after reviewing and analyzing the data that's collected and lessons learned regarding how we may design and refine our demand response programs in the future?
Would you anticipate we would share those with other CCAs?
There's lessons learned, I should say.
I would say that the CCAs are very much a collaborative environment where we're constantly looking at the innovations of each other and then seeing how we can improve upon them.
So, absolutely, we'd be sharing that information.
The other thing that we'll be monitoring very closely is the success of the existing demand response programs.
There are programs out there that a lot of customers are utilizing.
The commission is put in place.
We've made available to our customers.
So they're not branded 3CE programs, but they're there in their effective.
And we want to see how that develops over the next few years.
And when last question, at what juncture we launched this with texture, at what juncture do we look back and say,
And of course we're going to analyze the data, but we look back and see this is effective.
This is helping.
Do we have a time frame in mind for that?
I know we have a contact, I anticipate a contract.
Time frame, I'm sure.
Yes, with that one, we're looking at the first six months of the program launch to go back and re-evaluate or the first 500,000 in rebates given.
Whichever one comes first, we go back and evaluate and that's in our next presentation.
And one of the big focuses that too will be just income qualified customers, making sure we're reaching out to them effectively.
But the whole tracking will be part of that also.
Thank you.
Council Member Byron.
Chair, thank you.
Thank you very much.
I was going to try and keep it to two, but I think the first one is just a yes or no question.
I may have missed this.
This new energy storage program, rebate program, is it integrated with PV?
Because I mean, are we encouraging people to put in batteries without photovoltaics or.
Yes, so that'll be in the next presentation.
We actually have a rebate incentive for somebody say who's.
Doesn't have solar or get solar at the time of the battery versus somebody who already has solar, maybe they're an M1.0 or 2.0 customer in the switch over to.
MBT, you know, they get an additional.
Re-bate with with that.
Yeah, I'm just trying to understand.
Are we encouraging people to just put in batteries with this program?
They, they can without solar.
Yes, that is an option, but the solar is definitely one where it would be part of it and a lot of our outreach will be kind of focused in that knowing that people with solar.
So you actually.
Please.
These are another question, and this is a little bit out of the order I was going to ask, but.
You know, the former CEO of this organization, I had a conversation with him years ago.
I don't remember his name.
And he said something to me that was just, you know, you just don't say this.
We're going to go to 100% renewables.
Why do we need to worry about energy efficiency and demand response?
And of course, when you work at the energy commission, you drink the cool aid.
I mean, those are those are the loading order.
So why are we worrying about this?
What's the real purpose here?
Are we are we under some RA obligation that we have to meet?
Are we just trying to be good citizens?
Don't give me wrong.
That's, those are good, those are good reasons.
But why are we doing this?
We're spending money on DR.
Maybe when we get to 100% renewable, we don't want to restrict how much energy people use.
As long as it's renewables and efficient.
Why, why would we worry about all this?
So it's kind of a long term question.
Are we doing this because there's something requirement of imposed upon us to do it?
So from a strategy standpoint, I think staff have tried to make this clear through the number of presentations we've had.
But this comes down to two things.
There is no requirement from the CPUC or otherwise.
But there is I think the direction from the policy for that we want to encourage battery storage.
Because it helps further our climate goals.
So giving customers the ability to control their energy consumption to be a part of the reliability solution allows customers to help manage some of their cost.
It's going to help in at the margins around those net peak hours.
So we can be a 100% renewable, but renewable is still intermittent.
So you need a significant amount of battery storage to make that feasible at 100%.
Giving customers the ability to be part of a response in the long term.
And this is a long term play.
It's going to be when does demand response become meaningful?
Probably when we have vehicle to grid capabilities.
Probably whenever we have penetration of storage at a much higher level.
It's good answer.
So we're basically doing this to save customers money in the long run.
That's a good reason and it has grid benefits on the side.
And add grid reliability.
So this is a little more difficult question.
I think if I understand the response to the RFPs were pretty much non-responsive.
They weren't what you were looking for.
So what happened?
Are we asking for stuff that hasn't been done in DR before?
Or do the response?
It's missed the boat on this.
Because I understand you're going to refine it and you're going to put it out again.
Because you want to move forward with some programs, some DR programs.
So the scope would happen.
Did they all just try and sell their batteries to us?
Is that what they were doing?
Yeah, I mean, my take on it is you look at the different proposals that were done.
And they were pretty broad in terms of what they provided.
So I think I think us going back and using things like that battery rebate program to refine the scope in a way that we're getting apples to apples comparison.
Getting it quite price competitive and in the scope that addresses directly our needs.
I think is important.
So I think it's one where quite frankly, I think we need a little more time to refine that scope to be exactly what we need it.
And then we can send it back out.
And I don't think it's ahead of, I think it's right where things are going and it's part of that.
But I don't think we're ahead of it.
I think when we refine the scope, we'll be getting proposals that meet our customer needs.
Thank you.
Good luck.
Thank you.
And I just have a follow-up comment.
So one of your questions, Jeff.
I know I shared with Rob several months ago an article in the press about Green Mountain energy.
I think it is in Vermont.
Which is, I believe there are a power company utility.
But they were providing batteries to all of their customers.
And their study showed that it was going to save their customers money.
So you know, they're in a very different market in geography and regulatory environment than we are.
But I think the idea with this is that it's going to benefit everybody.
Any questions in the other locations too?
Okay, please speak up.
Yeah.
So I have a question.
This is Katie Davis.
And I think the program to encourage batteries is great.
We need a lot more of them on the grid.
So I like the instead of idea.
I have a word of warning with all of these.
As all these diverse science programs come online and there are overlaps.
And in particular with these integrations.
Because I have this experience.
I have solar battery trying to join a slow virtual power plant.
And to that I know you see a suddenly helping medicine.
The IOU said you're already using a demand response system.
You know, which tells you to power off things when you need to.
So we onion roll from that.
And then we try to get that in roll.
And you're like, no, now you're going to be something called leap.
And we have no idea what that is.
And there's no fight number or email for them because they're because they're at so party.
Kind of like you.
And so we have to ask experts and finally figured out that my husband signed up for this.
That tells you when to charge your car.
So always it's like a lot of weeks to time and effort.
Very confusing for consumers.
And then she also figured out this.
You think about rolling out a program like this.
The thing about this kind of overlaps and and and problems that are.
Up there right now.
If it is the way he's work.
So to that in mind.
Great comment that is something that we're looking into really appreciate it.
We have any other council members.
Feel free to speak up in the remote sites because it's hard to see everybody on the screen here.
I had a couple of questions myself if everyone else is spoken their piece.
In in your staff report it talked about putting a focus on commercial demand response.
And I wonder if you could just give us a little bit more specificity about that.
It's not something that we've talked about a whole lot during the the last year here.
I'll take a stab in and then turn it to Chris.
So when we started the the discussion one of the first places we started was an assessment of customers looking at their load and their ability to respond.
So commercial customers statistically while a smaller number of customers much more significant load.
So you know the three areas that that Chris identified that we didn't move forward at this point was cost effectiveness.
The ability to verify whether or not.
We're not people who are already in a demand response program exactly what Councilwoman Davis, which is identified, and then that battery issue.
So, in the commercial space, you're addressing two of three of those, which is you're moving it outside of the small battery, you can do larger batteries, and you get a much better bang for your buck in terms of actual demand response.
So, it's really about, if there's anywhere that there's a solution where demand response can be cost effective, we want to investigate that area.
And it's likely a focus for the staff over the summer next part of next year to further refine some proposals to think about whether or not it makes sense to move forward there.
And I were calling correctly when early on when we were talking about demand response that didn't we do a demand response commercial program a couple of years ago, and we found that it wasn't very effective.
So, is that that's just a learning experience that we try to figure out how to make it work better.
That's a, we did a behavioral demand response program where we utilize the flex alert to tell customers, you know, when there is a flex alert reduce your, your consumption.
So, it wasn't given customer the two things that they need to do to be able to respond education and actual tools to do so.
And we were counting on customers to be able to respond and what we determined in follow up conversations with those customers is while the dollar amount was really significant.
And I believe it was a dollar 50 a kilowatt, so 150 dollars of megawatt.
Oh, I'm sorry, $1,500 a megawatt.
That's a significant cost, but most commercial entities said that's not enough for me to change my operation.
I am in the business of building widgets and not in the business of producing nano watts, but still those customers who did not change their operation.
If their performance was improved over a baseline of I think two weeks prior, which was much more dependent on whether than any proactive steps that the customer would have taken, they would have profited from the program.
So it was an intended program and if you recall a few years ago when we did that, we did not expect that it was going to lead to any actual demand response and change in behavior.
But we wanted to do it for the education and be able to point that out to the commission because at the time the commission was looking to require a behavioral demand response program of all LSEs.
So apples and oranges between what that was and what we think is necessary to get actual response.
Do we have any further comments from the council?
Chris, thank you very much for that report.
Appreciate it.
And I just want to thank Eric for attending, taking the time with us, walking through the platform really appreciate your time and your willingness to share your expertise with us.
Thank you all.
We have any public comment on this item.
No public comment, sure.
Thank you.
So we're going to go to the CEO report next, I believe.
Thank you, Chair.
So in the CEO report, I'm going to take it a little bit out of order because I'm going to have chief operating officer, Mr. Dichoniel,
walk through the 100% renewable energy update.
And what you see on the first page is really a lot of work around staffing.
So I appreciate both the human resource effort and then the management effort to go through and identify candidates to bring them on board.
The investments that you're seeing here in terms of staff around energy programs, data analysts,
our communications and engagement with underserved communities, our deputy county council who, or I'm sorry.
Maybe maybe a Freudian slip, our deputy general council who came from the county council's office in Monterey,
as well as Operation Management and the Power Services area.
These are all really significant investments to our operations, both on the power services side and the program space.
Really happy to see these hires. There's a lot of other sort of movement and promotions within the agency and some other significant hires that are days away.
So really looking forward, I think we've we've tipped over to 40 employees for the first time meeting that we're cutting in to what was sort of a systemic.
So we still have other positions and I think additional growth in the agency will be necessary, especially as more and more energy assets come online as the number of PPAs were operating increases.
The need to optimize those operations in the market, the settlement and back end of making sure that we're settling out all of the payment obligations are really significant sophisticated operations.
So I see even beyond the positions we have currently that we may grow in that space in particular.
The other item that I just wanted to note if you were at the Operations Board or we're listening into the Operations Board.
The Operations Board have established an ad hoc committee to look at sort of the structure of communications.
At 19 members on the policy board and 19 members on the Operations Board that's 38 I can no longer say I have more bosses than employees.
But it's a significant number and I think the issues have been around sort of how do we communicate the non seeded member agencies, how does that allocation of seats work what are the responsibilities for those individuals that are in those permanent seats to help us communicate the other members.
How are we using city selection committees and other formal processes to do that so they're working on that and that's their task over the summer and then as they conclude any recommendations to come out of that will be taking to the policy board.
And with that, if I'll pause and take any questions on the two pieces I shared before turning it over to Dennis and we can bring up his PowerPoint.
Are there any questions for me?
Great.
John, do you want to bring up the PowerPoint?
Excuse me, we do have a question from council member Byron.
So I have a feeling.
Steiko Niel is going to talk about interconnection and piece pph challenges, right?
That's right.
So this governance challenge that you've identified.
I'm not quite sure I understand the way you were to that but.
How how's how significant do you think that is?
I mean, this is this is a big challenge.
The geographical area is so large that like you say so many different jurisdictions.
Is it is it causing some difficulty for for governing this organization?
It is probably an administrative challenge and you all are experiencing it as well.
You know, needing to have a certain number of set remote locations.
How you notice those having them be staffed.
Uniform every time.
So the customers have a sense of where they're going.
These are the types of challenge.
They're easy relatively easy to overcome.
But they require some purposeful thought around them.
But you know, we have a very engaged board.
We have an operations board that is looking at some of the challenges.
I wouldn't say that they're significant in any way.
I just think that at 35 member agencies and two boards of nineteen.
There are some needs to put in some better communications and procedures so that we're all operating in the same space.
So, you know, one area.
I mentioned the city selection committee.
Currently members can have an MOU amongst themselves or some other agreement or utilize the city selection committee.
Well, that means the relationship and how people are sharing information among joint seats changes from one area to the other.
And it's more about unifying a lot of that communication so that everybody feels they're a part of the agency.
I'm really glad to see that this is operations board is taking this up.
I mean, that's a heads-up approach to a maybe a problem that may grow bigger at some point.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'd like to just like to follow up and say, I'm really glad to see that that's happening also.
I've attended most of the policy and operations board meetings since our inception.
And, you know, with that many people sitting especially on the policy board.
If there's anything that there's any difference of opinion on and everybody wants to say their peace, it just takes a huge amount of time.
And the turnover in the composition of those boards is challenging because all of us here know that it's a complicated business and it's hard when it's new faces all the time.
So I know there's been an effort to keep city members in the loop when they're not sitting on the board in between times, but it is a big challenge and look forward to some creative solutions.
Thank you, Chair. John, can you bring up the presentation?
Good afternoon, Chair Capron and other council members, Dennis Teachoneel. She's operating officer here to provide an update on our progress on our getting to 100% clean and renewable power.
I want to start with going back to when we adopted this policy in September of 2020.
The policy board decided that there's a more impactful path we could pursue.
And the discussions at the time pertain to one, you know, what we were doing at the time was purchasing renewable power from existing power plants and buying what we say.
And the parlance is carbon free attribute purchasing and it was identified that there's a more impactful way to go about it securing and focusing on long term contracting does produce new projects being built with the ultimate goal of displacing the existing conventional fleet.
So that was one aspect for why we adopted this 100% policy. The second was there was a lot of focus on regulatory accounting mechanism called the power content level.
Our content level most folks are familiar with that, but there there are some weaknesses to it, which I want to illustrate here.
And it was part of the decision to adopt the new policy.
And what I know there's a lot of information here and I'll talk as you as you look at it, but if you look at the far right, that is those percentages represent the mix for PG&E of their power supply based on the retail sales.
And that's what shows up on the power content level.
But what I've presenting to you here is what are the volumes that drove those percentages.
And on the left hand side is really what everything PG&E procured and this is public information you can request from the PUC about those volumes.
And what is what and I'm doing this to highlight that this regulatory accounting is somewhat flawed and what what it's showing is that 25.5% of PG&E's procurement supply was from natural gas.
But the CEC who administers the power content level has this.
This arcane hard to understand rule called over procurement adjustment mechanism.
Maybe council member Byron can help us understand that, but.
Yeah, but it's what it does is what if a load serve an entity over procures, they have a way of cutting the volumes in the falling order.
They first cut natural gas and then they will cut these other fuels.
You know, they go natural gas, coal, nuclear, large hydro then renewable.
So what this does is it adjust the volumes that get used for the power content level.
So on the on the right hand side shows the volumes that were used to drive the percentage mix that goes shows up on the power content level.
So what you see here is this accounting in accuracy is that PG&E's procurement was 25.5% natural gas, but what shows up on the power content level is 4.8.
So it's allowing PG&E because they've over procured and a lot of that has to do with their departing load.
That they appear more carbon-free than they really are.
And so that was part of the discussion back in 2020 and it was the policy board decided we want to do something more impactful and long term contracting.
And getting to 100% is going to dry as move the needle more than then just focusing on our power content label showing a higher percentage.
So I want to turn now to what have we been doing since we've adopted this policy.
And I want to show you that since that time we've entered into 15 renewable contracts, about nine of them are sorry, eight of them are solar plus storage projects, two wind projects, four geothermal projects and one solar only project.
Now this is producing over this will produce when all these projects are aligned over a thousand megawatts of new renewable power for the grid.
And in addition to the batteries that are necessary ingredient to be able to dispatch the solar in more opportune times.
I've left out of this chart kind of our standalone energy storage agreements.
There's seven of those those are necessary ingredient, but we're talking about here about our.
Our RPS goals. I want to turn to of those 15 projects. Seven of them have begun delivering for our customers.
And really, this is a big accomplishment. I want to highlight a couple things. Victory pass, the bottom one, just came online in March and added, is serving 5% of our customers load.
The geothermal, man with Casa Diablo, first geothermal power plant to be built within California in the last 30 years.
We were responsible for that. And so, right now, we are serving about 33% of our load. I know I have 29% in the chart.
What I mentioned is that starting at 2025, we are expanding to add the city of Atasca Dero and San Luis Fiscal County.
And that's moving the needle a little bit on our load. So, it shifts it to a 29% of our load would be served once those communities are being served by us.
But I actually want to turn now to what I would call, introduce some dunkel flauta into the conversation.
For folks who were in attendance at our fall 2022 conference, I introduced that term. It's a German word meaning dark doldrums.
And it's used in the German energy renewable energy industry to represent when solar and wind is not producing.
But I want to expand that discussion. The doldrums we're in now is with the development cycle projects getting online, according to the plan.
And of these seven projects, five of them were delayed three to eight months.
So, that's just one example that we are in this dunkel flauta as it relates to renewable project development.
Moving on to what are the driving issues for why development of these projects is taking longer than anyone has anticipated.
The one that started with COVID is the supply chain issues.
And these developers were really through a wrench in their plans back when when the supply chain of solar panels that are coming primarily from China were interrupted.
And it introduced delays into their projects being able to come online.
Now, the solar piece has somewhat ease, but there's there's other the associated equipment step up transformers as a new issue that's introducing problems for developers.
What used to take a year is now taking three to four years to get those parts, which means these developers have to be very proactive at placing the orders for these necessary interconnection equipment for these solar.
And other renewable farms.
So the supply chain is something that one it impacted our online projects that were delayed, but it's also where we have about our under development.
We have eight projects under development. They're all doing the best they can to try to come online to what to the date say committed to.
Excuse me. But but but but they're still that that concern with the supply chain for some of the equipment they need to come online.
But really the more the more prominent problem, this dunkelflower issue in my mind is the interconnection process.
This process has become very dysfunctional in my opinion. It's it's a very challenging up effort for a developer who has to submit an interconnection application with with with the entities responsible for for these power plants to come online.
And what used to take pretty routinely two to three years to submit an interconnection request and beyond line is now taking five to eight years.
And so this this is this is the one that keeps me up at night worrying because I see this problem.
I think all the regulators see the problem even the federal government is putting out.
Memos to say you got to fix this because it's not just occurring within California it's all across the North America with with slow interconnection times.
And so this is this is these are these are issues that persist for our under development under development projects.
But turning to kind of our getting to the bottom line how are we how's our what's our progress looking like for getting to our goal.
And I mean I got two charts here about really the let's focus on the one on the left because that shows our position with regard to getting that 100% goal.
Before we move the goal post and adds a task of their own slow right let's talk about the the chart on the left for the moment.
If you look at the green line that's really showing our under contract projects and what percentage of our anticipated load it would serve and by 2030 we would have been at 74% with our existing projects.
I mean moving over to the shift to goal post of a taskator and slow at 64% for those same batch of projects.
And we plan the dotted line is showing that we plan to go out and contract for more to get to that 100% goal we still have time to do that.
I want to show that that red line because what is that showing we these are experienced delays for our online projects and even projects under development that have had asked for more time.
And you can see a huge drop right I mean in 2023 2024 we're talking in the 30% reduction in how much renewable energy we expected but didn't get.
And so this is really interfered with our abilities to get gets closer to that goal quicker and it also is also affected our compliance obligation sometimes we have to we have to take action to make sure we're going to be compliant with some of the regulatory obligations we have.
So so this is you know I want to kind of move out of the dark doldrums here a little bit and just tell you that we are cautiously optimistic that we can still get to our goal.
We've we've just issued an RFO got we got over 100 offers on May 22nd and we're currently sifting through them analyzing them and we're hopeful that we can find projects that one can help us get to our goal and come online in time to do so.
And and we'll continue to to strive towards that goal and and hope that that the for in my mind the interconnection process needs reform to be streamlined and get back to that two to three years cycle.
So that we can get there and that concludes my presentation happy to take any questions may have.
If I can just add to quick points maybe three two points in a story I promise to be brief one is the plan moving forward.
8 to 12 percent of load a year as we move forward we'll still get us to that 2030 so as Dennis mentioned cautiously optimistic and as we're evaluating projects that interconnection queue position it really means they need to restart a few years ago so developers if you're listening and you're thinking that you're walking in today.
You know your project may be there but we may be thinking further along than this the other piece is you know I think it's important to keep in mind.
What energy procurement means for customers and costs so.
You know Mr. Osmers not here but I always want to make the point that he makes so well which is.
Our climate goals are tied to the cost of energy and if we cannot electrify right the goal is you decarbonize the grid you use that decarbonize electricity to go after the low hanging fruit of electrify everything and then you focus on the industrial pieces that are difficult to electrify.
And without the low cost our climate goals are going to be further away so as we move forward at a very high cost in the energy market highest market that we've seen in some 20 to 25 years it's important that we keep in mind what our ultimate goals are which is to.
Move away from fossil fuels entirely you know so I just I add that caution that it's not just a number that we have for 2030 and our goal of 100% we do want to get there.
But as we move forward we're very mindful of where the market is where the value in the market is and you know whether.
It makes sense today to go after 8% or maybe is 4% and then we plan for a larger portion in future years when we see where the market is going.
It's just important to keep that in mind as part of our planning not just you know the dotted line on the chart.
The other point that I wanted to raise is is a bit of a story and I apologize for this which is.
I had an opportunity recently to meet with an interconnection consultant and he's been in the industry since the early 2000s and this is his job is to look for capacity and citing and to help developers site projects so that they can get done.
What he shared with me was I started this in this industry and I didn't know anything it was the best job in the world because they would come to me and they say where can I site a project it was 2006 in renewable energy was important the answer was anywhere you darn well please.
Because there's capacity out there this political appetite that build these projects you know the commission of set procurement targets and the answer was easy anywhere you want.
He says now I'm at the tail end of my career and you know I look at it and I think this is the easiest job in the world.
Because 20 years ago the answer was cited anywhere you want and the answer today is you can't site it anywhere there is no capacity so he says might the book ends in my career is.
I basically sit in my computer and collect my check that I don't have to do anything because the answer is the same as it was to our 20 years ago just for different reasons.
Anyway just a little bit of color to the point that Dennis is making.
Councilmember Sedan.
As Dennis thanks for the presentation I guess I'm sort of warning where the guard rails are contractually because only seven out of the 15 projects were delivered.
What was the expectation with regard to the other eight when were they going to come online and then of course I hear about the introduction introduction issues and that.
Siting and all that that's a big problem and I know there's a lot of we just had a meeting with carb and CEC and CPU you see they're talking about you know permit streamlining and all that stuff but I guess if you're writing if you have a contract they should have a delivery date.
And they shouldn't be able to say well we don't we can't meet the process is I guess what's the given take their relative to fulfilling the contracts and over those eight that are not online when are they anticipated to be online.
Well just in terms of the contracts in general we tend to build in a some cushion with allowed.
Extensions to the time anywhere from three to six months in it it has to have to be very specific reasons to to allow that you know force measure is one example of something beyond the developers control but we have other things related to interconnection being one of them which we talk about that's often something they don't have control over.
Usually though if they run up against those allowed extensions in the contract then it brings about a much more serious discussion on whether or not we're going to take action and maybe.
We have to usually have to men the contract which we've done with several of our projects the ones that are still under development they have they have very they have different stages a lot of them are going to be in the 25 to 27 timeframe.
Currently and and so those will be that's when they're they're currently planned to come online.
Councilmember Bowman.
Thank you Dennis what impact will the new tariffs on solar from the Biden administration have is if you can highlight that.
Yeah actually I had a note to comment on that but I didn't want to go too dark don't go flout but yeah that one is sort of looming right is that.
That the re-imposition of the solar terraces is also going to return the developers challenges on on getting those product those solar panels shipped over and whatever timeline they had expected because what it did last time was.
The shipers just left them in the ports they didn't want to send them over to the US until it got resolved.
And so they just sat there on ships and and that's likely to happen again with the I don't I don't think it's fully imposed yet right it's just being talked about.
And then if I may and in terms of you know projection of total energy consumption due to AI and crypto currency and so forth once you find yourself regardless of how many projects you have online.
It'll still be a smaller and smaller percent of the total load not not that you can do anything about it but it's just something to think about in terms of the long term goals.
I think right you're just commenting on what is our expected low growth and we do try to we do try to follow what the state the state does look at what is the year over your low growth due to AI EV.
EV adoption rates right and I think there's been recently there's been criticism of the CEC of not doing a good job on that we tend to defer to them but we also look at other sources and and try to adopt.
I think the low growth that we believe to be the most reasonable in terms of for planning purposes.
I just want to.
To both questions first about tariffs, there is a little bit of window before those are in effect.
And I would strongly encourage that developers that want to do business need to be securing their supply chain now.
And I think we've seen a lot of developers going to do that. And this is a carrot and stick operation from the Biden administration, encouraging US soil manufacturing of PV and battery components.
And also saying we're going to have tariffs for imported. So we are seeing more manufacturing moved to the United States and developers should be moving to secure that.
The other piece that may we may see change is the design of the battery modules because of the way the tariffs are currently proposed.
Moving the high cost components outside of the battery containment unit.
As with respect to the AI, Dennis exactly right, we are constantly looking and forecasting our potential load growth.
AI is an interesting northern Virginia is the primary location. The other locations that you're seeing AI data centers being cited.
The Pacific Northwest where there's significant water.
And then also in areas where there is very cheap land, there is own a desert, which also has a nuclear power facility nearby.
They have gone to the point that the demand is so significant, the load that they would be adding to the grid that they're really looking at stable supply of energy.
So renewables scare them a little bit. They are looking at how can I co-locate next to constant base load resources and then cost of the land is really significant.
If I could add to that there's current legislation proposed right now that would allow server farms and data mining operations as well as AI to actually use diesel fired generators and be able to skip air district permitting requirements.
Of course my association is opposed to that because of the environmental and health cost, but that's the thinking right now is the state on one hand is saying we need all renewables and the other hand is saying let's build as many diesel fired generators as we can to support these projects.
There's not really a unification or any direction north arrow that's being followed that I can see right now.
So we'll have to wait and see how that pencils out, but these generator farms have the ability to actually have an area go into a non-attainment with federal and state air quality standards there that massive.
So we're very concerned about what may be happening and then there's also the diesel emergency response during heat crisis and so forth that's something that's been shelved right now at car but it's going to find this way back very shortly so I'll let you know when that happens you're definitely going to want to participate in that.
Council Member Byron.
Thank you Mr. Chair.
I think this is a really significant issue and I thank you for highlighting this obviously there's a lot of reasons around these delays and you've and you've touched on all of them.
I would think for the most part everybody in the procurement business is in the same boat.
Right I mean it's not as though we're not going out and asking for something that no one else is it and you want to increase everybody else wants to increase we got some strong goals in the state.
CCA's are driving it well well beyond to my understanding well beyond with the but the PUC's requiring the IOUs to do.
But having worked in this industry for a long time and I haven't been in the procurement process for at least ten years and some of these issues are not new.
Okay the interconnection issues with with the IOUs I know you say the ISO but.
The IOUs own these lines right and and I doubt the POUs are having problems.
Building and procurement what they want to the publicly on utilities are having the municipal's are having any trouble.
So the gating issue still is the IOUs and the incentives that they have are contradictory to what.
We're trying to do here.
For 25 years the IOUs in the state have resisted renewables kicking in screaming from the first legislation that was passed you know the sheer legislation back in about 2000 to set an RPS a renewable portfolio standard.
They're still kicking in screaming except.
You know now they can put this in the rate base well they always could and that's how they make money and and.
So I'm still concerned Mr. Dyson ill that what we've got the gating issue here is the IOUs and I know we're all working together and.
Mr. Shaw's reluctant to say anything negative about are being good team members with our investor on utilities.
But I'd like to ask if you could be pretty candid with this house how concerned do you.
I mean.
I don't know exactly how to ask the question except that's my primary concern.
This is not new we've seen this before.
I appreciate the question. Council member Byron I don't know if I agree that the IOUs are the.
The cause I mean they do contribute to the delays because they don't adequately resource the work crews to do the interconnection work.
It's not just the work is the reviews I mean I know the insameteo county there's one person that does the distribution interconnection work for PG&E.
But but I do think and and even the federal energy regulatory commission has identified that the way that the KISO runs its interconnection queueing program is is has problems where.
People interconnect and get in the queue and they sit there and they never move forward on developing their projects and now because they've closed the door on new interconnection request you see gaming behavior by the developers on trading out these.
These positions and so to me the major reform has to happen with the KISO.
To to give more transparency and clarity and certainty to the development community on how long it's going to take.
And and and what they need to do to get their their projects online and delivering.
The IOUs look I I acknowledge that we've had some some information provided to us by developers that there's there's there they're introducing delays but it's really.
Under resourcing by the IOUs of the necessary interconnection work.
We still have a hybrid market as far as I understand you're not you do not participate in the procurement review groups at the investor on utilities those are all still closed not NDA confidential.
Processes they're out there procurement power and nobody knows because of their monopsomy power they nobody sees that information that they can disclose.
In fact they make everybody that submits a proposal sign an NDA saying they will not discuss whether or not they're on the short list, etc.
But I think it's worth watching how the IOUs are doing in their procurement process.
Right and I don't have any sense of that because I haven't been following that for a while but I am still dubious that that's where it is and of course the conclusion from all of this is we have to face facts we're not going to hit our renewable goals.
The way we've projected them to be I know you want to be optimistic but it looks to me like we're lagging at least five years behind.
Let me jump in on two things first the PG&E has asked for an extension around their midterm reliability procurement mandate.
Meaning that they weren't able to meet the deadlines set by the CPUC so the IOUs are seeing the same interconnection delays and challenges that we are seeing.
I think that there are really three major issues so from a policy standpoint and how we're trying to engage in the regulatory space.
The first Dennis mentioned which is appropriately resourcing.
So the commission asked a few years ago tell us do you need more rate based work to be able to complete interconnections on time.
Southern California Edison I believe their response was we do if you want to meet these goals this is what what it would cost and PG&E's response was.
We're fine we we have gotten that and that's I can't give you an advice letter number but but it is their official response to the commission's request.
And I think that's you follow the money where where is the focus and it's not currently in the interconnection space.
The second area Dennis also mentioned which is the speculative nature the interconnection.
A lot of focus has been about how to evaluate projects coming into the interconnection space but it's doing nothing to weed out the zombie projects that are currently eating up the interconnection space.
And there's a new market that is happening which is the speculative market of your interconnection position.
That is out there and it's happening and that's not helping get projects delivered any faster at a cheaper rate because it's a cost component.
And then the third area I think is around tariff design and this isn't so much about renewable and generation pieces but evaluating standalone energy storage assets and how they interconnect.
We have seen that you know we have to plan or the kysotaires require PG&E and the IOU's plan to a worst case scenario.
So they are treating batteries as demand on the system even if we are willing to acknowledge or sign a covenant that would restrict our ability to charge the batteries so that we would only ever discharge in the net peak hours and never charge it.
They still have to plan as though we may act in that sort of non-responsible and non-economic manner.
And that needs to be evolved because battery storage the number of projects they're waiting to be interconnected is just growing 100 fold over and over again across the kysotan interconnection cues.
So I would say those three areas are areas that there are solutions in the interconnection space but they're difficult to do.
Thank you both.
I don't see any more council member comments I have a couple of questions.
The rates that we're looking at in the current proposals that you're evaluating now for what our costs will be.
How does that fit in with our rates for our customers?
Is it going to have a big effect or is it still?
I know we have a lot of other costs besides just the power cost.
Is it going to have a significant pressure on pushing our rates up?
Power costs are about 92 to 94% of our total budget.
So it's a significant cost but as we move forward the PPAs are still generally a planned cost.
So when we're procuring energy we're not necessarily operating to beat the market over a 20 or 25 year PPA.
We're looking to stabilize and be able to plan around those costs.
But when you're taking such a long-term view it is important to step back and say where are we in the market today.
In 2028 we saw significantly different prices.
Some more than 100% lower than we are today.
So this is a significant change and we need to be able to step back and be purposeful in how we're considering projects.
So I'm sorry I didn't quite get the sort of bottom line if in terms of our current rates today.
If it's likely to put upward pressure on those if we were to sign contracts at the rate you're getting proposals right now.
I think it's one consideration right that we look at that.
We also have regulatory obligations that we also have to meet.
So we're looking at the whole schedule of things affordability costs impact on rates but also compliance meeting our compliance.
There's the midterm reliability obligation.
There's our obligations and of course achieving our goal here.
But I think that the cost consideration is an important one and it's part of our decision.
It's difficult chair to give you a bottom line of signing a cost equals a percentage increase in rates.
It is an important component but we analyze every one of these projects from the criteria established by the policy board.
That criteria means that we're going to look at the load serving energy and responsibilities.
But we're also going to look at the value of the project in the market.
There's a price that we pay, a fixed price that we pay but how can we utilize that asset in the energy markets.
So it's value today may change as we move forward over the value of the duration of the contract based on the energy market where the energy market sits.
So I would say as a roll of thumb it's not a good idea to sign a bunch of contracts at the highest point in the 25 year period.
But the value of those products over that duration of that PPA is going to depend very heavily on how you operate it and the conditions of the market and which you're operating it in.
No crystal balls involved.
Really big data analytic tools.
The other thing I wanted to ask is there's been a lot in the press lately about federal regulatory action on trying to make it easier to put power lines in.
And when you talk about the low-hanging fruit, that transmission capacity is getting to be a bigger, bigger factor in terms of, I mean, you have the interconnection issues with the delays with the utilities doing the engineering and whatever they have to do on there.
But also just the capacity issues in the grid.
And do you see any, are we getting to the point now where a lot of these projects are being built in the central valley and then sending energy to the coast?
Are we starting to see transmission bottlenecks that are going to be a factor in where projects are located?
Especially if it's taking eight to ten years to build a new transmission line.
I think it takes much longer to build a new transmission line.
I think that the challenge is more as generation moves further away from loads.
So when you get into isolated areas like the Owens Valley, Nevada, parts of New Mexico, that transmission capacity and bringing it into kiso.
That's where the real investment needs to occur because, again, that's where projects, that's where the wind is.
So that's where that will go. That's where some of the low cost energy or low cost of land is for sighting solar.
And then that's where some of the geothermal is. And so with renewables, you've got to go to where that resource is.
So as you get further away from load, you've got to have the transmission capacity that may be new lines.
It may be reengineering and Dennis can help me on the term.
But changing the capacity carrying capabilities of existing lines.
Okay, thank you.
Not seeing any other hands from the council, I wonder if we have any public comment on this item.
Yes, we do have public comment, but Garrett, we're ready for you.
Hi, yeah, this is Brett Garrett and Santa Cruz and as we're moving to the 100% clean and renewable goal.
I just want to strongly urge a strong emphasis on low-core renewable generation within 3 CE territory, even if it costs more.
As I was just hearing some of you talk about how, you know, in order to use these renewables, we need to build transmission.
But if we could build the renewables here in our region, then that additional transmission wouldn't be needed.
It would just, the whole thing would work so much smoother.
Lock over renewables, reduce the need for transmission infrastructure.
We currently have kind of an insane billing structure in California, at least in the IOU territory, which means I need to pay the same transmission chart regardless of where the energy was generated.
But I am very hopeful that someday we will have a more reasonable system with minimal transmission charges for low-core energy.
The clean coalition, for example, has a detailed proposal, including draft legislation to reform the transmission access charges, so that they would actually be based on how nearby the energy is included.
But even our current environment, it's a really good idea to reduce the need for transmission infrastructure by building our resources locally.
Local generation can also create local jobs, so please give a preference to some local projects.
Thank you.
Do we have any other public comment?
That was a final public comment, Chair.
Okay. Thank you.
Does that conclude your CEO's report?
It does, Chair. Thank you.
All right. Thank you.
So the next item on our agenda is a request that we support policy boards consideration of the behind-the-meter battery rebate program.
Again, yes, this item is asking the CAC to support policy board consideration of our proposed behind-the-meter battery rebate program.
And again, I will invite our Director of Energy Programs, Chris Cook, to present this item.
Thank you.
So as mentioned, this will be a presentation on three Cs for a pose behind-the-meter residential battery rebate program.
So I spoke to this a little bit in the demand response work plan, but this presentation goes into some more detail on that.
So first of all, as mentioned previously with the battery rebate program, this would allow for load shifting to occur.
So essentially enabling the electricity consumption to shift off of those peak demand hours.
And in turn, allowing for the benefits that was previously discussed of using cleaner renewable power, reduced overall costs of customers and purchase of the power,
and then increased resiliency for the grid, and I would add increased reliability for customers.
So then getting into more of the details of the battery rebate program.
You can see on the chart on the right, there's two different rebate mounts.
So the first one would be for our three CE choice and prime customers.
These are customers who either non-solar or they're getting solar at the time of the battery install.
And they would have a rebate amount of $300 per kilowatt hour.
So an average residential battery might be about 13 kilowatt hours.
So that would equate to approximately $3,900 rebate or about 20 to 30% of a battery install cost.
So in looking at, then looking at for customers that may be already had solar, they could be a NEM 1.0 2.0 customer and the requirement that they
become they go on to NBT or also for care, fairer, and medical baseline customers.
They would have a $500 per kilowatt hour rebate, which, again, for a 13 kilowatt hour battery, would be approximately $6,500.
And I would note that for these income qualifying customers, there's other rebates too.
With other agencies or IOS where you can stack those and they might be able to get up to 100% of the cost of the battery through the various programs.
So with these rebates and the new program we're anticipating approximately 400 battery install per year,
which would equate to a budget of approximately $2 million per year for the incentives.
And for eligibility, we would be looking for this fiscal year, any batteries that were installed after January 1, 2024.
As part of that rebate, we would be requiring several items.
First of all, they would be required to discharge at least 50% of their capacity during the peak hours of 4 PM to 9 PM.
And we'd be able to do tracking to be able to verify that.
Also they would need to be enrolled in the net billing tariff rates.
So if they're currently a NEM 1.0 or 2.0 they would have to switch over the net billing tariff rates.
And additionally as previously discussed, they would need to be registered and signed up for a battery performance tracking methods,
with some things that we could track their load shifting,
show that they're registered in that tracking method that we would have prior to receiving the rebate.
And then focusing in more on the income qualified customers,
this is one where we took a look at it and really wanted to set a goal of participation for our care and phara customers.
And our initial goal would be 15%.
So this is based on for 3C's current NEM customers,
13% of them qualify for care phara.
So we're using that 13% going slightly higher to the 15 as an initial goal.
That would equate to 60 rebates per fiscal year,
approximately 300,000 annual expenditures or incentive rebates and 780 kilowatt hours of new energy storage,
assuming 13 kilowatt hour of battery.
And to achieve this we would have with our CNO team would do a targeted multi-lingual outreach.
So this includes webinars, flyers, emails, social media.
They've done similar outreach targeted efforts with our electrify year ride program.
And we've seen really strong success with that in terms of participation for customers who could qualify for certain income programs.
And so with that we'd be looking to meet or exceed the 15% participation.
And then after the first six months or 500,000 rebates,
we would go back and we'd evaluate how the percentage of participation within come qualified customers
and if anything needs to be done to be able to reach more customers or meet that goal.
And as mentioned previously, during that six months we'll also look at the overall program, the load shifting and other impacts that occurred.
And to be able to do that overall review we'd have program tracking.
So this is where a 3C staff or evaluating how to track battery performance we talked about this a little bit previously.
We're looking at ensuring that as part of their enrollment process,
the customer would register for a tracking method where you could see the discharge and charge of the batteries with the load shifting verification.
And that would correlate to the performance tracking that performance on both an individual customer basis being able to look at that and then aggregating those in different methods to be able to say,
OK, the overall program after six months has achieved this much shift in load and then being able to see which customers are compliant.
So then for this new program, we have this project delivery schedule that our energy programs team has been working on.
There's been there was work on design of the of the program application wording and now it's really focused on being able to make sure it integrates with our customer relationship management software and also CNOs outreach efforts.
And overall we'd be looking at a late June early July start of this program.
So with that, this recommends that the 3C, CAC support seeking policy board consideration and support of 3C's proposed behind the meter residential battery rebate program.
Thank you.
Council member Sedan.
Thank you, Chris good presentation.
My comment is that rather than have a rebate which reaches back to before the program even started.
Why not have an incentivized program that actually ties us people to go out and pushes them over the edge to get a battery instead of just paying for battery.
Once they happen to hear about a rebate, this is a dilemma we've had with electric vehicles whether we're just paying for people to purchase a vehicle or lease a vehicle or we trying to drive them into the vehicle by using you know this.
So I just think that you know paying for people that will find out about this. Oh great. I already already wanted to do this.
This is already important to me and I did it but now I can get additional money from 3CE which could have been used to entice people to go that way.
Yeah, that's a great point. I have a couple items on that first of all.
I think that in terms of kind of making certain that we're part of that decision making process our team has been doing already webinars with solar installers and others to make sure that you know they're getting the message on the front end and you know the battery manufacturers can know about it and others so that you know when the customers coming looking at options they can be able to speak to that as part of it.
And then in terms of that January 1st date others might have other responses on this but one of the things that I noticed is in my neighborhood there are two batteries that people installed and all of us as neighbors came and asked a million questions of them.
So I think there's also something to be said for if a battery was recently installed and that person can be a steward for the program and say oh well you know if you do this you get an additional rebate and in that way.
Further motivate people who might be interested but a good a good point in terms of trying to close stay in front of the purchase as much as possible especially moving forward.
Councilmember Bowman.
Thank you. So in terms of the rebate because it's based on energy use would this be a perpetual obligation of three CE to continue to pay through the life cycle of the battery.
Yeah, so so what it is is it's actually so it is energy in terms of kilowatt hours like how much can be stored in the battery.
But it's it's the it's not the demand side like the power side so it's just a one time upfront rebate right now and from what we've initially heard it.
And I think if I can just add one clarification just because listeners in the public may hear it and it's an important distinction. It's not energy, it's it's capacity. So it's the size of the battery, not the individuals usage. So the incentive is based on the capacity of the battery.
Thank you. And then for the customers that do not have solar is our way to explain to the customer what their return on investment will be.
So in other words, if they make this purchase, you know, how long will it be before they quote unquote get their money back?
Yeah, and that is something that we are looking at and one of the key drivers on that is the price of of electricity during peak and off peak hours.
So it in some initial work that I was looking at, it's pretty much doubled during the peak hours versus off peak. So you can use that to be able to look at it in the life of the battery and communicate some of the incentives that way beyond just, you know, back up power that a lot of people think of.
So absolutely.
As I have a question here in Samaria, I just wanted to clarify.
For existing them customers, they, everyone has to go under MBT to qualify for the re-aids. Is that correct?
Yes, that is correct. They would have to switch over to the net billing tariff before qualifying for the rebate.
I wouldn't think we would have to have really good documentation explaining exactly what is going to change with their existing solar when they do that.
That is a big, big shift.
And one that I would imagine most people would clearly understand it probably would not do.
For the customers who are MBT already, five of the existing solar, that's a tricky equation.
And that is something that we have looked at in terms of that's perspective too, but that's a great point and we will work on talking points on that too.
Thank you.
And on the theme of Dr. Balman's question, do you anticipate doing any education for prospective customers around the financial benefits of them of having battery backup?
It's great that you're going to ask them to discharge during the peak that actually helps them a great deal in their bottom line.
But I think a lot of people think of batteries as a resilience measure.
I certainly did when I installed a couple of Tesla walls a few years ago, because of blackouts, where I get my power and so forth.
But it turns out that actually using your battery in a creative way saves you a lot of money.
And while I knew we ended that, so have you got any idea of how you would educate folks about that?
It's important to note that these are going to be installed through solar installers.
So the goal here is that driver behind this isn't necessarily an incentive we're offering.
The driver is the way the net billing tariff is changing the billing mechanism and how customers extract value from that system.
So we want to encourage battery adoption.
The real driver is going to be the tariff structure.
The benefit here is that it's our local solar installers that have the opportunity to go to existing customers and to new customers with an incentive.
And anyone that's gone through this process knows that the installers will give you estimated ranges of your return on investment, how you utilize, how you size, what your history of energy usage is.
And a summary of what demand response programs are currently available.
So a lot of that information comes from those solar installers.
We're working closely with them so that they're aware of the program, getting feedback from them about how that program is going to operate.
You know, to Councilmember McClish's comment.
I think the reality here is we want to design a program that's available to everybody, whether they have solar on the rooftop or not.
If they want a battery only and be a grid fed battery customer, they can do that.
I think we can all be grown up enough to realize that the solar installers are who are going to be having these customer conversations.
And they're going to encourage customers to put solar on their roof.
But the design of the program shouldn't presuppose that they have to do that.
So that's the mechanism here and that return on investment, how you're going to operate.
A lot of that education comes from the solar installers and we're going to continue that communication with them and partnership with them.
So that they understand how the program works and so that they're communicating directly to customers around how to utilize these assets.
My experience of solar installers.
I feel like I had a particularly good one.
Sort of all over the map in terms of their ability to articulate to the customer.
They can certainly articulate the benefits of the customer on the solar and the generation and all that kind of thing.
But the other the flip side of that is here's a battery.
And oh sure you just need to go and download the app and it'll tell you how to use it cleverly so you can save money.
It's pretty much what the guidance we got from our particular install for our battery.
So I mean I don't know if it would be useful at some point if you find that you're not getting as much of it uptake as you'd like to provide some training to the solar installers.
Not sure because I think just benefit of the quality of how they approach their own customers and how they educate their customers is not consistent.
So thanks.
And one question I had that I wanted to kind of circle back around on was the switch over to the net billing tariff.
Is there any way that that can be appealed at all?
Is that a CPUC regulation?
I'm not familiar enough with that to understand but I think in order to bring on customers that are on them one and them two is maybe the possibility that they could appeal that.
That change in status to net billing tariff because I think financially that's going to be a much better story to tell in terms of battery backup or battery storage.
So I wasn't sure if that was a CPUC guideline or regulation if you could comment on that and if there's a possibility that we could get a waiver and appeal to that switch over to NBT would I think would be huge.
You see allows us to add battery through the existing analysis without changing the depth estimation.
Yeah.
So the change to NBT is either you know not sure who's required that but it's if you see isn't right now.
So.
If you have a source of the system you have to change but a battery by itself.
I can't remember damners I want to make sure I understand your question you're asking is as the design of the program the requirement of eligibility that you move early to NBT whether that's required.
Okay.
The answer is no that's not required by the CPUC that is required as part of our proposal because the policy board direction was was really too full.
One we want to reduce the subsidy that's being paid to solar customers so that non solar customers aren't subsidizing free electricity to solar enabled customers.
And then adding an additional benefit to those customers that are already getting free electricity at the expense of non solar customers who tend to be lower income.
Of apartment dwelling customers so the first direction than the CP or from the policy board was reduced the subsidy.
The second direction was to encourage battery adoption and then the third direction was to give customer tools and ability to be able to respond in future demand response programs.
So this is taking those steps to be able to do so.
The battery incentive available to them one and two customers who are already getting subsidies that the commission is determined or out of whack with California's policies and goals would not meet that first objective of reducing the customer subsidy.
The early transition to NBT that is defined as I think one full billing cycle before their grandfathering period would run.
So a customer could move early really at any point that the IOU and their billing cycle and I'm sure that we'll be working with installers so they can explain that to customers.
It allows customers to move early to NBT but early is can be late when you're talking about a 20 year grandfathering period.
Just a quick note I believe this the batteries may be eligible for the residential clean energy IRS credit which is like 30% so if that can be included in the customer information and so forth that so between years and and that credit makes it quite a bit more affordable.
I had a follow a question on that is that I know when I put batteries in to get the credit it had to be powered by solar and you can't charge the battery under at least you know the regulations when I install batteries can't charge off the grid and put it back in the grid you can only charge from solar if you're going to get that tax credit has that changed under the IRA.
I'm not familiar with non grid charge component of the IRA that would limit the ability for that but we will look into that.
Okay yeah it was always tied to the solar tax credit before so it had to sort of be part of your solar system in order to qualify.
And I would add for low income customer qualifications there's others to like S chip and others that provide significant rebate so there's a number of programs out there.
Thank you chair.
These are all really good questions and I guess I'd like to put a bow around let me ask first I think this a yes or no.
Is this being presented for recommendation to to this CIC for the first and only time tonight.
Well I missed last meeting so yeah so so we are looking to launch this program end of June early July so we will be.
Looking to launch it before you know an XCAC meeting potentially.
However like I mentioned we're going to be going through evaluations and looking at how it's doing and I can definitely see if there's a recommendation to bring it back that.
So this is the first time the CAC seeing it.
So it's a lot of good comments here from a number of the members I think.
And I think I I would summarize adding on to what I've heard from others.
I think what's missing in this is there's no real.
Radi impact or cost benefit analysis there's no financials here for us to evaluate the efficacy of the program.
You know there's which we're kind of doing back at the envelope calculations is to what's what's the benefits of the customer.
You're preserving 40% of their capacity you're rebating in 20 to 30% there's a there's an additional there's additional rebates that could make it more attractive.
I know I'd be reluctant to give up 50% of my power except there is the.
I'm I'm sorry I'm I'm trying to mix it all together because I'm not seeing that and there's no analysis here that helps the customers that we're trying to incentivize.
Understand why they would want to participate in this program as Mr. Steadon said and move.
As a result of this not just because they're trying to backfill paying for their battery.
And the second is it's hard for me to to recommend this although I'm sure I will.
As to you know the efficacy what what's are we are we spent and are we spent in.
We spent in 3 CE money wisely here with this rebate program and I don't see any any any analysis that would indicate that so that's my my comment back on this program.
Yeah absolutely so.
So as I mentioned in terms of the overall program I would like to kind of take a step back and remind that it's also.
So load shifting overall that we're achieving with this so it's I mean price is a component of it because as I mentioned you know the price during peak hours is significantly different for both the customer and 3 CE so benefits everybody for somebody doing this load shifting versus off peak.
But then you also have that clean renewable component that we're talking about you also have.
The the reliability component for backup of power and you know we did do some preliminary work it's still in development so it's not something I could present here but we did look at okay the life cycle of a battery the peak versus off peak.
And and what that could mean for a customer given the rebate given a cost of a battery and it did look like something that would be cost effective for a customer but I think.
In my mind at least it's a whole package of benefits including clean renewable reducing emissions and adding reliability and reducing grid stress and the cost so I would not see it as just one item that's benefiting.
And and and it may not be the sole reason why somebody buys a battery but it definitely motivates them additionally to buy it would be my right and and and as you said in your earlier presentation I think I asked.
Do you have to put solar in to get these batteries rebate program? And I think the answer I got was no. So not necessarily all those benefits would apply in that circumstance. There's Ms. Johnson points out somebody like, and I know people have done this. They put their Tesla walls in just because they want that resiliency that backup power. And we don't necessarily want to reward those folks, because there's no real grid benefits for that.
So I guess I'm just not seeing that my comment is I'm not seeing the analysis that would indicate for me as a CAC member to recommend this.
What is it is a good bank for the buck, and I'm not seeing how the customer evaluates whether or not this is something that incentivizes them properly.
Let me step in. I disagree with the premise that using the battery for our backup purposes doesn't help the grid and that being grid fed for the battery doesn't have a demand response or load shifting capability.
So the analysis is really through the net billing tariff. That is the structure by which you're really excuse me. That's not true.
So the driver here is how does an economic person utilize their battery if they're going to be discharging the battery to the grid.
They must be on a them program. So they do not have to have solar. So they could be grid fed with the battery. If they want to be grid entitled with the battery and not have a discharging capabilities, then there's still some load shifting that they could do, but they wouldn't be eligible for our program.
At the end of the day, this is an investment in trying to operationalize this. That's what the texture platform is utilized for monitoring behavior and whether or not the batteries are being utilized, how we can educate and then add additional tools.
It's important, I think, from my perspective, that where are the CEC and the Commission going to? The CEC is going to real-time pricing. They're requiring that all load serving entities build real-time pricing.
And if there isn't a battery, if customers don't have tools to be able to respond to real-time pricing, charging their battery and low cost hours utilizing that energy in the high peak dollar hours,
then customers are going to be hurt tremendously during that time period. Because what customers won't do is follow when is the off peak hour.
Those of us that have an electric car or some reason to look at it, we will look at that.
But the net peak time period and time of use time periods changed dramatically. As you know, probably when you are on the CEC, we were telling everybody don't use electricity between the hours of noon and two.
That's not what we tell them now, because there is a glut of renewable energy that's available in those low cost high solar hours.
Actually, there's another rate structure still set up for that.
I don't think it is. The off peak hours are now in the middle of the day and your high cost hours are in the end of the day.
So those are the changes that are coming and this is an investment in preparing customers to be able to respond to those costs.
And the cost benefit of how we structure this is something that will continue to monitor as we move forward.
But it's currently within budget entirely. I think that's important to note as well that, you know, we don't need an augmentation or additional budget.
We have the program budget to be able to move forward with the program.
Well, thank you and it's a lot of esoteric discussion on my part there and I apologize, but it's just I'm not seeing the financials.
I'm not seeing the analysis in this two and a half pages to really provide you with I think a good recommendation.
Council Member Steadman.
Yeah.
This is an esoteric, so don't don't worry.
So what happens is this first come person.
Once you spend up to the a lot of budgeted amount or do you have a provision to revisit it and perhaps fund additional amounts to that program.
Yes, so that will be part of that first 500,000 or six months to do a reevaluation of it.
So we want to see what the participation is.
We want to evaluate from there. I mean, we have talked with people in the industry see what they're thinking.
There's other CCA students, we have a sense of what it would do, but yes, we're going to look back and evaluate at that point.
Council Member Bowman.
So you presented a lot of compelling arguments why this should go forward and intuitively it makes sense to me.
But to our Mr. Byron's comments, perhaps I could make a motion that we move this item requesting that you provide the operational boards to go to them and to the policy board more analysis.
And simple to understand terms for customers what the advantage to the customer will be what options they have for tax rebates both with solar and on solar.
And to the comment, I think came from San Luis Obispo, what will mean to solar customers.
And in that way, those boards can have that information before them.
But I think conceptually, at least for myself, I would say that this is a promising proposal.
And I think with those analyses, they'll have the information they need to make a good decision.
I'll second Dr. Mohammed's motion, thanks.
Could you restate your motion, please?
That we move this item forward requesting that the financial analysis that Mr. Byron referred to are presented to the operational board and ultimately the policy board.
So they have the information they need to make a good financial decision.
It's just one correction, the operations board has seen this already.
So we're just going forward to the policy board.
So if you would adjust your motion in that regard, so I'm at it.
Thank you.
I have a couple of questions and comments.
I wanted to mention that this program was recommended by our CAC through the ad hoc committee work three years ago.
It's one of the programs that we suggested we move forward with.
And in terms of one of the things you were talking about, Jeff, a 50% reserve requirement.
I think most people who have battery backup.
You can set what your reserve requirement is it's usually 50% or less anyway.
So I don't think that would really impact people in their use of the battery.
You want to be able to use that battery for backing themselves up in the evening,
so that they're not using expensive electricity.
I just wondered, it seemed to me that and maybe you've gotten input from solar installers.
But it seemed to me that all new solar purchasers going forward are going to want to put batteries in.
So you could kind of assume that, you know, assuming that our communication is good,
that however many solar systems get installed in our service area, all of them are going to apply for this rebate.
And I'm wondering if you've looked at numbers to see what that's going to do to the volume.
Yeah, that's a great question. So that is where we got that 400 participants annually from.
There is approximately 4,100 new solar installers each year in the 3C area and about, you know, 9% do battery right now.
So that's going to be the initial amount and then we'd see from there what the intake would be.
So you're basing on the 9%?
So we would be, so we're basing it on the 9% of battery installers right now.
So if, you know, if they went up significantly and amount, yeah, we would have to look at that further.
Yeah, assuming that everybody did the rebate too, that was there.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think couple who's.
Yeah, I think it's solar is not a good cost proposition without a battery under the.
I'm doing them requirements.
That's right.
But yeah, for the most part, we need a battery now.
Yeah, and we have also.
Yeah, so I think I think that moving forward it will it sounds like there's already a pretty high percentage with the ones that are doing it now.
We are seeing with other CACs that are running similar programs. I think they're first.
We talked to one in a committee meeting and their first month they had that recently happened.
There was similar rebate levels.
They had approximately 30 participants that month.
So considering just one of the other CACs as a reference.
It's it's one that I think we'll just have to see within the first six months what we would get and.
Yeah, probably using that as a better reference.
I wonder if you have any information, you know, that.
In trying to make sure that we're serving all our customers and this is available for lower income customers.
We're kind of counting on.
Ask you up being part of the equation so that lower income customers conceivably could get a hundred percent of the cost covered.
Do you have any idea.
I haven't followed it the last couple of years.
How as ship funding is going are they are they are they is it being funded to the level of of demand or is it.
Do they run out of money halfway through the year every year like they used to.
That's a good question.
I I'd have to look back on that and get back to you in terms of their funding levels and whether that runs out at the end of the year not but I can check on that.
So I think that that would be something we want to be looking at contingently that we don't want this to just be kind of like solar used to be.
Something that benefited people of a lot of means.
And maybe think about other strategies to make sure we're serving our low income customers also in some component of this.
I was really glad to hear you talking about taking a look you know six months down the road and that we do have more program funding available conceivably so that if this program was.
And a strong response that potentially we'd be able to apply more program funding.
To continue it.
I just wondered if you could give us a look at where we are what what the staff's projections are you know is the end of last year it was it was somewhat disappointing that we were not utilizing a bigger percent of the funds that.
Or did it make available to us. Do you have any if you guys looked at sort of where you think we're going to be at the end of the year I know that you know there's a lot of variables it's hard to know but.
Do you do you see the possibility with all of our programs to still have some room to increase budget if demand ends up being high.
In terms of budget projections that's in the works right now but from a high level where we stand through year end the two million for battery rebate program we wouldn't currently be looking to go back for board approval in terms of that overall budget amount and then in terms of additional I think we'd have to see where it goes from there I don't have a.
I don't have a big picture on the budget and I think that's what that is really important for you and the two million we were looking at in terms of projection and that should fit within our existing energy programs budget and then yes and as time goes on we'd keep evaluating that on a monthly basis and see how it.
And the big picture on our budget, does it still look like we have a fair amount of excess funds?
I mean, maybe that's the wrong term.
The funds that we may not spend during the year depending on how the project uptake is.
I mean, is your best estimate that there might be some extra funds at this point in time?
Well, I'm hesitant to give a response set just because we're doing a lot right now to train increased project impact.
Like we expanded scope of plan year fleet.
We're looking at various outreach methods of different programs.
But we are certainly with that two million for the battered rebate programs saying that aside.
And there is a chance there could be extra available.
And that's part of the evaluation that we'd be doing.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
Do we have any public comment on this item?
No, public comment, sure.
All right.
Well, we have a motion in a second on the floor.
Can we have a roll call vote, please?
Thank you, sure.
Alan.
Okay.
Alan.
Sir.
Alan.
All right.
Alan.
I.
Dan was?
No.
I.
Jesus.
I'm sorry.
Johnson.
I.
McCreish.
I.
No.
I.
Sarah.
I.
Stadman.
Hi.
Two to go.
Hi.
Vice chair Davis.
I.
Chair Keeper.
Hi.
Aye.
Chair Keeper.
Aye.
Okay.
So the motion is passed.
And would this be a good time for us to take a break?
I think it would be a good time for us to take a break.
So we will be back at 635.
Thank you.
Yes.
Thank you.
We're going to call our meeting back to order. Clerk, file, could you check for quorum, do I will call?
Yes, chair.
Aaron.
Here.
Bellman.
Present.
Byron.
Back for more.
Yes, more.
Here.
Johnson.
Here.
Niklash.
Here.
Morton.
Here.
So, though.
Here.
Steadman.
Here.
Toodoki.
Here.
Vice chair Davis.
I think she had to take off.
Thank you, and I'm chair Kaper.
Here.
You're here.
I have a call.
Thank you very much.
Our next item is to provide input and provide staff, a support, staff's action plan to implement the
UNServed communities outreach and engagement action plan.
So, I think this is a follow-up to the actual document itself.
How it's going to be implemented.
Yes.
Thank you, chair.
You'll be call.
We presented to you earlier this year.
The CAC had been instrumental in the development of our underserved communities outreach and engagement plan.
We've since decided to add an action plan element to that plan.
So, we really are looking at measurable outcomes and actions.
We presented at one of your meetings earlier this year that we were embarking on this initiative.
Saw your input on what items could be included in that action plan.
And we're now at the point where we have taken that input and created the action plan.
So, your input into this process has been invaluable and we're very much looking forward to receiving your feedback on this initiative.
And with that, I will turn things over to Jenna Espinoza.
She's our Manager of Customer Account Services and she will present this item.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Community Advisory Council.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to you.
I just want to note that in addition to leading our community engagement and customer services teams.
I am also accompanied by my colleague Fernando O'Connor who's in the audience in the main room tonight.
And as a member of my team, she leads our bilingual community engagement efforts.
This evening I will be sharing an update on the work that has been conducted to review and prioritize outreach strategies in furtherance of the underserved communities outreach and engagement plan.
And I subsequent development of an action plan which is intended to guide staffs activities throughout the next fiscal year.
In the instance that you are not already familiar with the underserved communities outreach and engagement plan.
I want to share a brief background on the plan and revisit our definition of underserved communities.
The underserved communities outreach and engagement plan was developed by 3CE staff and an ad hoc committee of the community advisory committee in 2021 and accepted by the policy board in 2022.
In April this year, we are not done. I brought to an update on the agency's progress in the plan and presented a preliminary action plan to prioritize staffs work in the Serena for the next fiscal year.
3CE considers communities to be underserved if they are underrepresented in matters discussed by the agency.
And as an access to public investments resources, education and information about energy service is limited.
As a role, communities face greater barriers to access because of their geographic location, cultural or language differences socioeconomic status, health risks, their position within the digital divide and exposure to environmental hazards.
While we are always actively building relationships and meeting with key community partners, we want to hold focused meetings specifically for the purpose of conducting and
informal rapid needs assessments, specifically focused on underserved communities.
To do this, we met internally across departments with a handful of current and past members of the community advisory council.
10 community-based organizations across our service area and four public electricity providers across the state.
In our internal meetings, we identified lessons learned since development of plan and current barriers to more equitably serving our customers.
And we met with current and past members of the community advisory council who were involved in the development of the original plan.
Now, while there are thousands of community-based organizations in our service area for the purpose of prioritizing our work under this plan for the next fiscal year,
we met with community-based organizations that provide direct services to those community members in our service area for the most economically vulnerable.
Through these conversations, we learned that while many of the agencies have the ability to serve customers in English and Spanish,
translating into indigenous languages even for the purpose of supporting their most basic of needs is very challenging.
This emphasized even further how important it is for us to simplify our communications in both English and Spanish to make it as easy as possible to share our message.
One of these organizations was focused in particular on culturally and linguistically appropriate marketing and outreach,
and this conversation highlighted ways that we could reduce barriers to participation in our programs through new outreach strategies.
These conversations also centered around the cost of living with housing being the most challenging.
Most of the agencies we spoke to provide direct bill pay assistance, but there was varying consistency across these agencies in them going,
and referring customers to care for a worldwide heap and we see a great opportunity to improve in this arena.
We also met with the community foundation in each county to get a regional view of the needs facing our community and the organizations doing work that is most relevant to our agency.
These conversations were focused on identifying potential partners with whom we could build stronger relationships to advance awareness of care fair and other bill pay assistance programs.
I lost my third programs that reach winners, reduced barriers, and increased the impact of energy programs on underserved communities through direct install pilots and building workforce development pathways.
Additionally, we met with four other public electricity providers such as ourselves to discuss best practices in energy equity through the maintaining relationships with community-based organizations and energy program design.
These key findings have been developed into an action plan for fiscal year 2024 25.
The action plan follows the format of the underserved communities outreach and engagement plan, and therefore has been organized into four key goals on the screen.
To increase awareness about customer financial resources, we aim to establish relationships with one social service agency and each county to build awareness among community-based organizations regarding our competitive rates,
develop bilingual resources, new call center scripts, and continue to host our farmwork or outreach program.
To increase awareness and access to energy programs, we intend to create an inquiry process to help specific customers complete their energy program applications and use this as an opportunity to identify ways to improve the application process.
We're also partnering with at least two community-based organizations to advance applications.
We will also explore the pilot of a direct install program for heat pumps.
To collect customer feedback, we will host focus groups, explore opportunities to support career pathways, and continue to incorporate Spanish language outreach into our annual customer survey.
Finally, we will launch a re-enrollant and customer awareness outreach campaign that will include a focus on caring for customers, social media, developing a process to adjust our materials so that they're easier to read and connect better with Spanish-speaking customers, their Spanish media, and by featuring Spanish speakers in our promotional campaigns.
So I mentioned knowledge that measuring the success of engagement in underserved communities is a challenge that 3CE and other agencies are still working on.
CS and members ask that we build a set of measures for this action plan in order to track benchmarks.
The measurable items that were included in the plan are to finalize relationships and partner with one social service agency in each county in order to share 3CE's information regarding bill assistance rates, cost-saving tactics, and general awareness.
To host 16 pharmacist outreach events to distribute information on care, care, and 3CE programs.
To develop one screen share instruction and video on how to complete an energy program's application based on common barriers identified through the program inquiry process.
The partner was at least two community-based organizations.
One, if you could go back one slide.
Thank you. One in each, the Northern and Southern parts of our region to facilitate increased program referrals and energy program application assistance.
On a quarterly basis, review and address customer feedback and barriers identified during the energy programs inquiry process.
To continue to incorporate Spanish language outreach as part of our annual customer survey.
To develop a process of using infographics and narratives to align development of new and updated materials with the community's literacy levels.
And to feature Spanish speaking customers and community members in two paid promotional campaigns.
So, in conclusion, I want to acknowledge the time that dozens of people took to meet with us to help us think creatively to identify barriers and solutions and identify ways that we can show them community better and more successfully.
And for not in particular, did the heavy lifting to organize these meetings and put thought into how those meetings could be most successful.
And she was very thoughtful and expressing her gratitude to each and every individual who sat down with us.
So with that, the full action plan is in your pocket and after we receive your feedback today, we'll be bringing this action plan to the policy board during their June 26 meeting.
So thank you for your time and attention this evening and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much.
Do we have questions or comments from the council?
Council member Johnson.
Thank you.
So at some point, I'm imagining.
As you're deploying this plan, you'll be feeding back and evaluating an update on the plan, how
it's going, how you're hitting your metrics, so forth and so if that's a question, I assume
that you're going to be doing that and you'll be bringing that back to the CAC episodically
to let us know how it's going. I hope.
Yes, so this is a action plan for the next fiscal year, so I would imagine that we would give
an update perhaps mid year, but we haven't determined exact cadence of feedback.
That seems right, thank you.
I'm not seeing comments from other council members. I had one question. I know that there's
some specific measures that we've taken in the past that are planning the future for
reaching out to farm workers, which are you really, are artists to reach customers.
I wonder if you have any other strategies for trying to connect with other low-income groups,
besides farm workers, groups or individuals who aren't farm workers?
Yes, so this next fiscal year, we will really be focusing on formalizing a few key relationships
with community-based organizations in hopes that those organizations that are already doing
direct service or grassroots-based work will be able to better connect with those community members.
I think that's great. We're making further connections with our community-based organizations.
I think there are a resource that we should continue to develop relationships with
Congress Mayor Soto.
I just got promoted.
I have, well first, I do want to commend the hard work that went into developing this action plan.
And thank you for the presentation. I thought it was very thorough.
And what impressed me the most is how community-centered your strategies are.
But I think that's valuable. It's very important.
It's key. There was a couple of points that were mentioned that kind of stuck out at me and
identifying who those trusted messengers are in the communities to be able to further expand the conversation
on this and not just from a community education perspective, but even just breaking it down
to what are the benefits and what are the messages that align most with the core values of the communities you're trying to reach.
And I often boast and say that Mexicans invented reuse recycle.
And because nothing is wasted in our homes and it's just part of our culture.
Part of our values, we don't waste. I don't go and buy garbage bags.
That's just one very minor example.
But taking care of and being good stewards of the earth is very important to many indigenous members of our community
and most especially in the culture that I represent as well.
It's very important to us. So being able to come from that message point will be very well received
and it will resonate with most of the community members that you're trying to reach and what is considered the heart to reach
or the underserved and under-resourced historically marginalized communities. I think that's really important.
I also wanted to state that I, the building the relationships across sectors is very valuable in reaching the communities
and particularly in media as well when you have strong relationships with media.
Not only will they give you more for your book, but they'll also definitely help continue to spread the word and have conversations around that.
One particular radio station in the Latino communities, Spanish speaking community, radio is usually the most the biggest form of media that we rely on and get our information from
because we take radios everywhere. They're in the fields if you were in the hospitality industry.
It's what's playing in the background and the kitchens and the restaurants that's what's playing in the background.
So having deep and strong relationships with media is going to have a big impact in the work that you're doing with this action plan.
One particular station, not just because it's my favorite and I used to be a volunteer DJ, radio, radio, they have several talk shows throughout the week.
And really that's another strategy I would recommend you consider is working with them so that they could break down.
I mean, you could probably have a show every month just to break down a lot of the work that we're doing here.
So that you can kind of focus on different things and compartmentalize, you know, big part of what you want to do before you operationalize is normalized, right?
So really bringing this conversation to community in a very unique way that is not just not just comprehensive but also relational and that aligns with core values.
I think you're going to go a long way when when you approach it in that manner.
So those are my comments. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the hard work. Thank you, Rosemary.
Councilmember Norton.
Yeah, I also want to commend the hard work that you're doing and just to sort of support what Councilmember Soto just said.
I think radio by I think my friend Jose Martinez saw Donna just became colleague executive director of that.
So I think that's a great resource and she shouldn't pass it up.
And the other just piece of advice that I didn't see it here, but maybe it's in the CBOs that you're hiring, but also to work, especially in San不了 County.
I think work with the communities of faith.
I think especially in San不了 County, there's a lot of folks that are attending church on city mornings that aren't outside of the normal places of contact.
And so I think that maybe an effort is probably true of other places, but I know in San不了 County that that's a place you don't want to mess in order to reach I think the target audience.
Thank you.
Yeah, I just I wanted to say one of the reasons I've proud to have been involved with the organization is because of the priority we placed on reaching out to underserved communities.
And the resources we put to that and the great staff work that you guys have been doing.
So appreciate that.
This item is I believe an action item for us to make a recommendation to the policy board.
So I would entertain a motion on that.
Second.
Do we have any further discussion on the motion?
Chair, we do need to call for public comments.
That's an excellent idea.
Thank you.
It doesn't look like we have any public comments.
And I guess the motion and the second.
Thank you.
Norton, Norton made the motion.
Statement second.
Thank you.
Could you please call a roll call vote?
Yes.
Chair.
Alan.
I.
Dr. Domain.
All right.
Five in.
Aye.
Timers.
Aye.
Johnson.
Yes.
Thanks.
Nick Wish.
Aye.
Norton.
Aye.
So, though.
Aye.
Statement.
Yes.
To it to Boogie.
Aye.
Chair.
Aye.
Motion is carry.
Our next item is to receive a report from our nominations committee.
And before I turn that silver to Wayne Norton, who's going to bring that to us, I just wanted to say.
What a pleasure.
It's been sharing this council for the last two years and serving on it for the last six years.
It's an amazing organization to have been part of the growth, if a nominal growth.
And just to see us from our early beginnings get up to the high level of professional work that's being done now.
I really enjoyed working with the staff.
I'm happy to see new staff coming on board today.
Especially enjoyed working the last two years with Catherine and Rob who I've been working closely with.
And I think that I've served with 26 members on this council over the last six years.
And, you know, the thing I've been impressed with is I don't think people have come to this this room with their own agendas.
Even though some of us were put on on the council because of the particular interest we had previously.
I think universally people have come here because they were committed to the big picture work that we're trying to do in terms of climate.
And we've just had a number of terrific council members that's been really a pleasure serving with all of you.
So council number.
Yeah, thank you.
And first of all, I just went before we pick us success.
I just want to say thanks to Seth, you know, Seth that I've worked together on a numerous projects over the 30 or 35 years that we've known each other.
And Seth has always had.
Seth has always had the community and heart and in front of mind and broader community.
And when it comes to the three CE remember, Seth has been with this organization before it became an organization.
Seth was one of the grassroots people who worked hard to build the public support for this for this organization to exist.
So, you know, Seth's been here since before the beginning and I know that he will not this won't be the last time while he was voice.
I'm sure that when Janie calls for public comment, I'm sure that someday Seth is going to be the guy out there and the security attention.
So anyway, thank you, Seth, appreciate all of you that.
So thank you.
Just start when you yield for a moment.
Yeah, please.
Just chairman.
I, I too am stepping down.
And I'd like to also express my appreciation for your leadership these last two years.
And as Mr. Norton said, all the years prior certainly to before I got here six years ago as well.
So well done, but may I may I make just a few closing remarks also and unless you prefer I go later.
Okay, I just want to say a couple of things as well.
I really appreciate this this council as does as does the chair.
I appreciate all of you as volunteers.
I don't think you get enough recognition for serving your community.
A statement is nice, but it's not the same as saying thank you.
And I don't think you hear it often enough.
So I'd like to put my thank you in for your service as well.
Of course, it's self serving because I'm in the same capacity I suppose.
But I do want to say two other things and it's just a little bit of perspective and hopefully encouraging.
CCAs are the, are the the best thing that was created in the electric power industry in my career in California.
You know, we'd like to take credit for a lot of good things, you know, renewables and energy storage.
But CCAs are a really good thing.
And, you know, California is a leader in really throughout the world but certainly in the United States on environmental and energy issues.
And, and I have to say this vertically integrated regulated monopolies are antiquated structures.
We don't need them anymore, except for the wires, let them run the wires.
CCAs are the unrealized promise of deregulation that goes back to the 90s.
It really, it really is a powerful thing and I think some of some of us recognize that early on.
And, and, and I don't think we realize that are, we need to be reminded often that the full power of the promise of CCAs and what we have beneath our feed here.
We need to exercise it serve our customers.
We can serve customers without regulators.
Nobody else gets to do that without shareholders and without what I would characterize as the, the warp measures of the regulatory rate making process in San Francisco.
We don't do that.
And, and, so we need to continue that as an advisory council, help our elected officials put that power to work.
I'd also like to just say a little bit about 3 CE.
I've been promoting CCAs around the state for a long time.
I think this is amongst the best.
It's, it's got the best.
Governance structure as difficult as it may be.
And, and I think we've got some of the best staff and leadership.
And, of course, the champions that brought this forward years ago.
Every, every CCA had a, had a champion of some kind.
And, and, Mr. Mr. McPherson, any standout for having seen this through.
So, I encourage you to ask yourselves before every meeting or during every meeting.
What is the best thing we can do for three CE customers?
And I'll end on, on a bit of a cautionary note.
There is a organization out there that lurks constantly.
I think I've talked enough about that organization today, but I just want to remind you, this is an enormous threat to their business practices.
And as much as we need to get along and work together, they ran a ballot initiative and spent $50 million to try and bury this.
They ran legislation to try and bury this.
They've put in roadblocks, right in left, departing load, procurement, charge, and different allegations, on and on and on.
And you've overcome all those barriers.
Interconnection may be the new one.
Mr. Dyson Neal is gone.
And remember, they can even go bankrupt and still emerge from the dead.
We do not get that option.
So be vigilant because I just really think, as as low as the risk may be, the consequences are severe.
So again, I, my best wishes to all you, to all, it's exciting time with new leadership.
So I wish our new leaders good luck as well.
But Seth, you're going to pleasure working with you.
See you in the future.
Thank you.
All right.
So just a little bit about the process.
By the way, Jeff, thanks a lot.
I've learned a lot from you over the course of the couple years I've been here.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
And thank you for your service.
So that a little bit about the process.
So in order to not violate the broad act, all the communication to the CAC members was done through the clerk.
We explored interest and position.
Anyone who just didn't say no right out was contacted.
So we could delve into it a little bit more.
And I also want to acknowledge the work of John Hughes, who's in here tonight.
But, I can't remember John Hughes was served with me on the ad hoc.
And in the end, we have two great leaders that are going to, I hope,
lead us well and wisely through the next couple years.
Council members, Jonathan, to have a two-key, so her ignored.
And I was practicing that in the car.
I'm sorry.
I messed that up.
But I'm happy with the process, the process worked well, I think.
And so, Seth, if you're ready chair, I will make an nomination to,
oh, you want to do it from four, how would you want to proceed with the nominations,
would you like me to make a nomination?
Nomination for chair first, yeah.
All right.
I nominate Jenny Johnson for chair.
Okay, that's the nomination brought to us by the nominating committee.
Does anybody else have any further nominations for chair?
Can I ask the clerk to bring that to a vote, please?
Thank you chair, Alan.
Bye.
Dr. Downham.
Gladly, I.
Violin?
Very gladly. I.
Do you want more?
Yes, for sure.
Johnson?
Yes.
McClish?
Aye.
Northern?
Aye.
Staten?
Yes.
Do you want to vote?
Yes.
Chair Capron.
Aye.
And for vice chair, I nominate Norman Tuva.
Tuke?
Tuke, Tuke?
Tuke, Tuke, Tuke?
Sorry.
Thank you.
And do we have any nominations from the floor for vice chair?
Seeing none, could the clerk please call the roll?
Alan?
Aye.
Dr. Downham?
Aye.
Violin?
Very much.
Aye.
Evers?
Yes.
Johnson?
Yes.
McClish?
Aye.
Northern?
Aye.
So, then?
Aye.
Zadman?
Yes.
Do you want to vote?
Yes.
Check it, Cran.
Aye.
The eyes have it.
Congratulations to our new chair and vice chair.
It feels great to be leaving this body and good hands and look forward to working
with you guys in the future.
Is this my last name?
Yes.
Well, yeah.
And I just want to thank both of you.
Thank you very much for your service.
It's been great working with you.
And I do remember, Seth Kaper and being at 11 o'clock in the evening, Hollister City Council meeting.
Hang in there with us and answering all the questions we finally got a good vote on that one.
That was very painful.
So, he was there and he suffered through it all.
Thank you so much for your service and for your time and for what you helped build here.
And thank you for the committee.
Thanks, Wayne.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you both Seth and Jeff for your guidance and your leadership being new to the board.
Or to the council to understand all of the intricacies that go behind and what's involved in electricity itself.
And so I'm learning a lot.
And all of the questions you guys asked are asking our things that I don't think of.
And so I appreciate the opportunity to learn.
We talked a little bit about it earlier.
Before it to serve me folks supporting you folks as council members and also this agency.
I've been also supporting our new chair.
So appreciate the opportunity.
Well.
Thank you.
Thanks for your willingness to serve.
Yeah.
How are we?
We are adjourned.
Before we adjourn chair, we do just have one last.
As you were I done.
Which is that as has been noted, this is the last meeting for two very important and longstanding members of this council.
Seth, you and Jeff have been members of the community advisory council since 2018.
You have both served as chair and both added so much value to this organization.
Not just this committee, but our agency as a whole.
So on behalf of everyone at three CE or board the staff, we want to really thank you both for your meaningful contributions.
We wish you all the best in your future endeavors and hope that you stay in touch.
And I do just want to present to you a small token of our appreciation.
Thank you.
Just for the record.
I wanted to announce that we did not have any.
That would comment on that last title.
Thank you.