Ameren Missouri PAYS Program Is a FULL PROGRAM Not a Pilot!
Thanks to James Owen, our fellow PAYS® Pal and ED of Renew Missouri, for alerting us that an unanimous settlement was reached by parties and approved by the Missouri PSC last month where Ameren Missouri's voluntary PAYS pilot program will instead be a full-blown program! This was part of an application filed by Ameren Missouri to extend their Missouri Energy Efficiency Investment Act (MEEIA) Cycle III programs.
No pilot process means no death by pilot!
First Municipal Utility in the Nation to get a USDA Loan for On-bill
Although municipal utilities (munis) have been eligible for USDA RUS program lending under statute since the 2002 Farm Bill, munis have not been able to take out a RUS loan due to either bond rating issues for the cities and or budget procedural norms that make loans difficult to administer. The inability for munis to easily borrow from RUS has made muni PAYS® programs a nonstarter.
Although it looks like TCL&P will use this capital for an on-bill financing program rather than a tariffed on-bill investment and cost recovery program, the precedent set here is certainly news to share with other munis who would previously thought USDA RUS loans were not for them.
ACEEE’s Latest North Carolina Paper Mentions PAYS but Vastly Underestimates its Potential ACEEE's report provides a third-party, peer-reviewed quantification on the potential of energy efficiency in North Carolina specifically and recommends the on-bill tariff program Pay As You Save® as a financing strategy and mentions Roanoke's Upgrade to $ave program. Although this report is laudable in many ways, it does not indicate a full appreciation of the potential for tariff on-bill/PAYS likely because key information was published after ACEEE's analysis was completed, specifically:
The report was authored prior to Duke's tariffed on-bill settlement and so neglects to identify PAYS® as an opportunity for IOUs, and
Their report was also published prior to LibertyHomes’s ACEEE Summer Study Report on Roanoke Electric's PAYS program and unfortunately underestimates the savings potential of tariff on-bill upgrade programs, citing a figure 20X less than actual field data that can be seen in our attached report where savings are ~20% on average per upgrade.
These omissions underscore the criticality of publishing more PAYS research so that organizations like ACEEE who produce secondary research products will have primary sources of data to incorporate in their follow on reports. LibertyHomes has alerted ACEEE of these new data so they may reflect them in any follow up discussions of their results.
Cobank’s “Tariffed On-Bill Cost Recovery for Grid Edge Investments” Webinar Recording
You may remember that CoBank hosted a star studded panel of PAYS Pals who shared their expertise on tariffed on-bill! The speakers included Curtis Wynn, CEO, Roanoke Electric Cooperative & President, NRECA, Dr. Holmes Hummel, Principal and Founder, Clean Energy Works, Leslie Holloway, Manager, Member Services, Ouachita Electric Cooperative Corporation, and Wesley Holmes, Director of Strategy and Development, Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance.
All presenters' slides are attached and you can view the webinar recording here!
댓글