Rural & Hard to Reach Local Governments Working Group May 5, 2015, 3:00 p.m. SUMMARY NOTES Attendees: IMPLEMENTERS Craig Schlatter, CDCMC Rachel Cox, Great Valley Center Jeremy Terhune, GVC Rick Phelps, High Sierra Energy Foundation
Lou Jacobson, RCEA Matthew Marshall, RCEA Courtney Kalashian, SJVCEO John Griesser, SLO County Jennifer Rosser, Sierra Business Council
WELCOME John Griesser, San Luis Obispo County Energy Watch opened the call. He shared he personal experiences and how he journey to implement the SLOEW has lead him to a similar desire to better understand how to move this group forward. JG stated he was happy to serve as a co-lead, or co-cat herder and no one objected! His first need/want as lead cat herder is to get the group to figure out who we are, what it is we’re trying to do and what do we want to do when we grow up? The group agreed that this makes sense. th
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JG speculated that this call, our call on the 13 and meeting on the 19 of June are not discontinuous. The outcome for today’s call should be to answer some critical questions and be able to communicate th something specific to Jeremy Battis, Energy Division so that the June 19 meeting is a working session. JG also reminded the group that we need to be realistic; this is a volunteer group of rural local governments and program implementers, not an organization like the LGSEC. We don’t have staff, we don’t have a budget so our work is really going to come down to cross-cutting priorities. STRUCTURE JG turned the agenda over to Courtney Kalashian, SJVCEO/Valley Innovative Energy Watch to address the group’s structure. CK shared she was disheartened that the January 2015 in person meeting of the Rural and Underserved Local Governments included the counties of Marin, San Mateo and Sonoma. She shared she was more bothered that there was an impression from ED that without those three in the room the CPUC ED would not see value in the group. With that in mind, she asked the group if she was off base, or if the group needed to have defined membership criteria and if so, what should that be? Craig Schlatter, Community Development Commission of Mendocino County, Mendo-Lake Energy Watch shared some history of how the group originated. The calls with JB began roughly two years ago as a result of several public comments made by rural and underserved local governments. Following those formal comments JB was assigned to work with the group. CS addressed the perceived notion that rural local governments don’t matter by saying that they do, those comments resulted in an assigned staff person and this group and that a coalition of rural local governments who align to submit formal comments to the CPUC can and will be impactful. Regarding limitations of the group, CS was inclined to keep the group as a PG&E focused group as he doesn’t know the other IOUs and wondered if opening the group would cause us to lose our message. Are the priorities different for other local governments in the other service territories? Jennifer Rosser, Sierra Business council countered that there is strength in numbers and that SBC would welcome the other IOUs so long as the members are rural.
Rachel Cox and Jeremy Terhune, the Great Valley Center, being new to the group simply asked that membership be kept to the rural and underserved profile and that the other IOUs be invited to the conversation. Rick Phelps, High Sierra Energy Foundation, Energy Sierra Energy Watch, suggested the “Home Depot Test”. Is there a Home Depot in your community? Within one hour? Within three hours? The idea is that the further removed from commercial services your community is the less likely you are to be receiving the full potential of energy efficiency opportunities. RP shared that one of the benefits of being smaller is we are more in touch with the customer and the IOUs and larger local governments can learn from our success stories. Matthew Marshall, Redwood Coast Energy Alliance, liked the Home Depot test concept! He agreed there needs to be a limit but wondered where we draw the line—Sonoma and Marin are not rural but an argument could be made that they have minority populations that could be considered underserved. MM shared that the most defining characteristic of this group is the “not worth the trouble test” where a contractor can’t rationalize the cost of accessing the customers in our particular regions. MM agreed that including all IOUs makes sense. Lou Jacobsen, also RCEA seconded MMs comments and asked the croup to consider who our audience is? It should be the CPUC and sometimes we do and don’t act like that’s the case. LJ suggested that we need to address what the CPUCs role is and how they structure their programs and what we want to impact. He expressed the goal should be to make the CPUC the audience with all the IOUs at the table. MM commented that some of the conversation will be with the IOUs but it’s also what CPUC is doing and how it’s trickling down to us. CK shared she really liked the idea of the audience being the CPUC, but having the four IOUs at the table. She shared her experience in the SCE/SCG Peer to Peer group had been invaluable in her ability to better implement her program and encouraged inclusion of the other IOUs. She suggested that group move away from the broad definition of ‘underserved’ and instead look at the defining characteristic as the CPUC definition of ‘hard to reach’ specifically the sub-definition of HTR geographic: Hard to reach customers are defined as “those customers who do not have easy access to program information or generally do not participate in energy efficiency programs due to a language, income, housing type, geographic, or home ownership (split incentives) barrier.” Hard to reach business customers also include factors such as business size and lease (split incentive) barriers. Geographic – Customers in areas other than the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego area, Los Angeles Basin or Sacramento. (Energy Efficiency Policy Manual, Version 4.0 , 2008) JR, having to leave the call at 3:30 formally commented, ditto. JG, shared he has had major concern defining membership. He asked, can we get closer to who we are and what criteria for membership? Knowing that there will always be grey areas, we need to be able to define why we include who we include. JG welcomed inviting the other IOUs to the table. CS stated we need an identity--maybe a set of issues we all feel is important? The question circled back to his comfort including other IOUs and he reiterated that if we have too many people it may make unity difficult, but he is up for trying it out. RP reminded the group that there are programs where the title and scope is the same, but implemented differently by each IOU. A statewide group would open up opportunities for better consistency. MISSION WORK JG spent 2014-15 3 months guiding a strategic plan for his energy watch and understands that developing a mission can take a long time, but it doesn’t have to. He volunteered to take on the task of leading the
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process if the group was open to “homework” between now and the May 13 call. He also admitted that the 30,000 foot view can be perceived as unnecessary and if that was the case and the group wanted to focus efforts on our open issues of concern that was fine. A conversation ensued about the need for mission work and do the members have time? CK stated she valued the mission work and would make time. MM admitted he vacillated between mission work being a necessity and non-necessity. He furthered his thought by saying if we are going to make the CPUC our audience then the group needs to have an identity, and that he was willing to give it a try. LJ agreed. RP very concisely stated that our mission is to help ensure that rural/hard-to-serve communities have access to the same energy efficiency opportunities available to those geographic areas with larger populations. RC and JT are in favor of mission work. CS shared he was in the mixed feeling camp but willing to give it a try. CD furthered by taking LJs point and asking how do we want to be perceived—are we an organized coalition or an unofficially uniform group on a message? One is more public, one is more subtle. CK asked if we can be both and a conversation on the topic followed. MM pointed out that even if only one person has an issue the support and weight of the formal group could help forward progress. th
MAY 13 AGENDA th The group discussed those items that they would like to touch on during the May 13 call with JB. Interpretation of who we are; move from Rural and Underserved to Rural and Hard to Reach; that we want to expand to include the other IOUs. Draft of mission work Update from JB on rural net to gross roll out If time allows, conversation about the 10 year rolling portfolio and updates LJ stated all thoughts are leading back to cost effectiveness-- the rural adder to NTG and how to get resources into our communities. MM suggested we may want to include issues that come out of the ED staff white paper on the rolling portfolio. CK agreed to send the white paper, CPUC Energy Efficiency Primer PowerPoint and summary notes before the end of the day. CK to assist JG in preparing an agenda based on group feedback. th
Next Meeting: Wednesday, May 13 at 11:00 a.m. Call th Friday, June 19 , 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. In Person, Sacramento