ICAN Scores Utility Victory for Idaho Consumers

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ICAN Scores Utility Victory for Idaho Consumers

Once again, ICAN has spoken up to stop the Idaho Public Utilities Commission from handing utilities everything they want at the expense of the consumer. ICAN learned that the PUC was looking at letting Idaho Power try a Decoupling Pilot Project.

What is Decoupling? As everyone who pays the bills knows, utility bills usually have several line items, including a monthly basic charge that everyone pays regardless of how much energy they use, and another charge based on how much energy they used that month.

People who support decoupling – environmentalists and utility companies – say that this system gives utility companies an incentive to encourage customers to use more energy. The idea is that if the company sells more energy, they get more revenue, and they care more about pleasing shareholders than customers, so they have a reason to get customers to buy more energy, instead of encouraging conservation.

They say that the way to get utility companies to encourage energy conservation is to "decouple" their revenue from consumer usage. There are a lot of ways you can do that. The bottom line is that the point of all of these methods is to allow the utility company to earn the same amount of money, regardless of how much energy their customers use – in other words, they should be paid to not sell power.

ICAN speaks up for consumers. Idaho Power and an environmental organization worked with the PUC to pick one of those methods. This plan would add a new charge to residential and small business´s monthly bills if Idaho Power´s sales per customer decreased. They allowed the public to comment in writing about the plan, and ICAN put together comments attacking the plan on many levels. Some of ICAN´s criticisms included:

» The plan did not include a cap on how much extra revenue Idaho Power could charge customers.
» The plan did not require Idaho Power to show that it was doing anything at all to increase conservation in exchange for getting paid more.
» The method of calculating whether customers were buying less power was deeply flawed.
» Idaho Power actually makes more money selling "leftover" electricity on the wholesale market than it does selling it to customers, so it will be paid twice under the plan.

ICAN´s Comments Have a Real Impact on the PUC´s decision. The PUC decided to allow Idaho Power to try the Decoupling Pilot Project, but it placed some limits on the project that followed ICAN´s recommendations. The PUC´s order discussed ICAN´s comments at length. The PUC also said that it would:

» Include a 3% cap on the new charge
» Require Idaho Power to show serious commitment to conservation efforts, including the things Idaho Power had already promised to do and more
» Closely monitor the program and cancel it if any "unintended consequences" resulted
» Include ICAN´s criticisms in any review before it reauthorizes the pilot program and during Idaho Power´s next rate case

The PUC also encouraged ICAN to participate in future reviews of the project.