Download POC Meeting Notes_November 2013_FINAL

Portfolio Options Committee
November 19, 2013
MEETING NOTES
Portfolio Options Committee members attending:
- Jennifer Gross, Brian Harney (NW Natural)
- Dave Tooze (City of Portland)
- Caitlin Peel (Renewable Northwest Project)
- Brittany Andrus (Oregon Public Utility Commission)
- Julie Peacock, Rebecca O’Neil (Oregon Department of Energy)
- Terri Bowman (Portland General Electric)
- Jeff Bissonnette (Citizens’ Utility Board)
- David Philbrick, Eric Lovell (consumer representatives)
Other attendees:
Ariel Son, Rhonda Rasmussen, Barbara McKibben (PacifiCorp)
Josh Halley, Lauren Shapton (Portland General Electric)
Aaron Lindenbaum, Pamela Birkel (prospective consumer representatives)
Stasia Brownell, Caroline Moore (3 Degrees)
Jesse King, Aaron (unknown) (Green Mountain Energy)
Sheldon Zakreski (The Climate Trust)
Nate Sandvig (MWH)
On the phone:
Lynn Frank (Five Stars International)
Robin Quarrier (Center for Resource Solutions)
Announcements
- Josh Halley has moved from Green Mountain Energy to replace Thor Hinckley at PGE.
- Dave Tooze recommended the City’s fix-it fairs. POC folks are there with information on
signing up.
- Pamela Birkel and Aaron Lindenbaum introduce themselves as potential members of the Portfolio
Options Committee as consumer representatives.
AR 555 Update and Public Meeting Practices
Brittany announced that there will be a rulemaking hearing on December 11th at 10am. Erik Colville is
still the lead Staff on AR 555. The meeting will discuss template reporting customer options for the
power mix and the confidential reporting sheet will be a part of the reconciliation report.
Rebecca asked about coordination between the “label” under AR 555 and the customer brochures about
green power that are created, stating that it is important that customers receive consistent messages.
Josh replied that PGE is still going through the Green-e process and brochures will be developed as part
of that process.
Rhonda replied that the Green-E requirement is to disclose before June 30 each year, so Pacific Power
issues by April each year. The materials are planned a few months in advance.
Brittany also advised that we will have to implement specific procedures for public meeting notices and
executive sessions in the future. In February, we will have a presentation from the state DOJ. Jeff agreed
that there were no past practices in the POC other than email notification, so a refresher would be a
benefit.
The POC agreed to the following agenda items:


February 25: approve new members; program updates; DOJ presentation; time of use
presentations from both utilities; REC markets presentation by PacifiCorp; interaction between
voluntary and mandatory markets
May 13: presentations from habitat providers; presentations from Energy Trust; update on Blue
Sky grants program; finalization of annual PUC memo
Communications “factsheet”
General agreement among the POC (Jeff, David, Eric) that this is a helpful tool and should be published
on the website. It needs “bullet points up front” for the quick reader and the history for the detailed
reader. Members to relay edits to Rebecca by December 6th.
Carbon offsets
Presentation from Sheldon Zakreski, The Climate Trust.
Presentation from Brian Harney, NW Natural, on program development.
Renewable Portfolio Standard
Presentation from Julie Peacock, Oregon Department of Energy, on status of the mandatory program.
Wrap-Up
The marketing teams will send out an electronic survey asking POC members about their preferences for
program updates.
Starting at the February meeting, POC members should come prepared to formulate concrete
recommendations to the Commission for our annual memo, due in June 2013.
Meeting adjourned, 12pm.
Comment from Robin Quarrier, Center for Resource Solutions, submitted for the record –
I’d be happy to talk more about our pie chart requirements. In short, this issue may come up in various
scenarios where the utility lists the resources in its generation mix or portfolio when it is selling the RECs
separately or never procured them.
If it looks to an average customer that the utility is providing them with wind energy from xyz wind farm
that is listed in the utility’s generation mix, but really the utility is selling the RECs to another party who
is trying to get them certified, we might have a problem and not be able to certify the RECs. The utility
has effectively claimed the RECs through its generation portfolio disclosure. In some cases we may be
able to certify RECs generated after the public claims have been fixed. This may require providing
disclosures of delivered mix and / or deleting certain references to the wind farm on the utility’s website.
In other cases, RECs from that facility may never be eligible. It is always helpful if the utility provides
disclosure of the resources actually delivered to customers. Many states require power mixes, that may
look to a customer like the resources they are being delivered, when in fact it is only the resources the
utility has contracted for generation and the RECs are not going to the customer. In cases like this a
utility should provide additional disclosure to a customer about what resources are being delivered – in a
similar format or with similar prominence to the fuel mix. If this does not occur, Green-e may not allow
the RECs into certified transactions.
If a utility has a fuel mix that lists generation resources, in some cases the RECs counted in the generation
mix are being sold into the compliance market or in an uncertified voluntary transaction. We cannot
regulate the resources listed on the generation mix unless there is an attempt by some party to use them in
a Green-e Certified product. If the utility also has a Green-e Energy certified voluntary green pricing
program, we would be concerned with double claims on the RECs in the utility’s generation mix if the
renewables in the generation mix were actually being claimed in the voluntary program. However, if the
generation mix does not contain RECs claimed in the certified voluntary program, we could only tell the
utility about best practices of providing information about delivered mix, though we would have no
reason to as their standard product is beyond the scope of our authority, which extends only to certified
products.