HomeMy WebLinkAbout12 Save Energy, Water, Moneyenda Item a
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To: Board of Directors
From: Steven Poncelet
Date. October 04, 2017
Subject: Save Energy, Water, Money, and Live More Comfortably
1. WHY THIS MATTER IS BEFORE THE BOARD
This Board item, Save Energy, Water, Money, and Live More Comfortably, is the
second in a new series of board workshops concerning how we communicate with and
serve our customers and community.
2. HISTORY
The Mission of Truckee Donner Public Utility District is to provide reliable, high quality
water and electrical power services while meeting customer demand, and to manage
District resources in a safe, open, responsible, environmentally sound manner at the
lowest practical cost. To achieve this mission, the District operates an electric and
water utility along with the necessary supporting departments and programs. It is
imperative, given the complexity of the energy and water sectors, that the District
communicate effectively with our customers and community in order to educate them
on the value of public power and water and to engage customers to participate in the
many programs and services that we offer.
These communication and outreach efforts, along with the associated programs and
servicesI fall into well known themes that communicate the essence of how the
District's efforts serve our customers. Today's key themes include:
• The Best Water Right From Your Tap;
• Save Energy, Water, Money and Live More Comfortably;
• The Facts of Mountain Living;
• Your Public -Owned Local Electric and Water Utility;
• Your On -Line Account Anywhere;
• Truckee is EV Friendly;
• Clean, Reliable, and Affordable Electric Services; and
• Your Local Community Partner.
This Board item covers "Save Energy, Water, Money and Live More Comfortably"
3. NEW INFORMATION
Save Energy, Water, Money and Live More Comfortably:
This theme has existed in the District for over a decade and encompasses the
following key activities of the District's conservation programs:
• The District's role as steward of the our electric and water resources;
• The District's philosophy of pursuing cost-effective energy and water
conservation programs; and
• The benefits to the District, our rate payers, and the community when we only
use the water and energy that we need.
The District understands that water and energy are precious natural resources and we
strive to provide reliable and cost-effective services while minimizing the impacts on
the environment. As presented in the previous workshop, The Best Water Right From
Your Tap, the District is playing a lead role in stewardship of the Martis Valley
Groundwater Basin and helping our customers conserve water. Again, the District's
water production is down over 40% since 2006 by plugging leaks in the distribution
system, by installing water meters well before the State mandate of 2025, and
promoting water conservation. On the electric side, the District has made significant
efforts to both procuring clean energy and helping customers only use the energy that
they need. The District achieved 61% renewable energy in 2016 as reported to the
California Energy Commission while delivering stable and competitive electric rates.
In addition, the District has made significant investments in energy conservation
programs and, as documented in independent Evaluation, Measurement, and
Verification (EM&V), has achieved significant energy savings for our customers.
The District's stewardship role, however, does not stop with our customers but also
includes now the District itself uses resources to achieve our mission. The District, to
measure how we use resources, conducted a Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GHG) in
2013 comparing our GHG usage from 2008 to 2012. The impressive result, a 57%
reduction in GHG's, was driven by the District's transition to clean energy resources,
operational efficiency improvements, and significant investments in energy efficiency
projects at District facilities. Critical to these efforts is educating people on the value
of our energy and water resources along with providing the opportunity to save
energy, water and money.
The District is required by California law to take 2.85% of retail sales of the electric
utility to invest in Public Benefit programs (energy efficiency, renewable energy, low-
income, and/or research & development). While the District has invested in all four of
the Public Benefit categories, we have focused the majority of the investment in cost-
effective energy efficiency programs which provide a return on investment to the
District and money in our customers pockets. Simply put -and as verified by EM&V -
the District has been able to deliver energy efficiency programs ($0.02/kWh to
$0.05/kWh cost for each kWh saved) for only a small fraction of the cost that the
customer would have paid to purchase a kWh ($0.14/kWh). The ~$0.10/kWh saved
by using less energy goes directly into our customer's pockets.
The resulting overall reduced energy demand allows the District to leverage our
existing infrastructure and capital investments to serve more customers without
additional expenditures. For this reason, the District since 2008 has been investing
on the order of 4-5% of retail sales on energy conservation programs with very strong
cusfomer participation and satisfaction. The District's water utility, while not having
the same regulatory mandate as the electric utility, has invested in cost-effective
conservation programs for the same reasons.
The District has developed an impressive portfolio of cost-effective energy and water
conservation programs. Conservation programs fall into two main categories:
efficiency and behavior. Efficiency uses technology (LED light bulbs, appliances, low -
flow shower heads/toilets, motors, controls, etc.) to achieve the same function but
more efficiently. Energy and water efficiency programs are popular since, once
installed, the technology's benefits are well understood and stable. Behavior on the
other hand (turning off lights, turning down the heat and wearing a sweater, turning
the water off while you are brushing your teeth, etc.) can have dramatic and
immediate impacts but the benefits have been historically hard to maintain. Education
and awareness are critical for getting customers to accept new technologies and to
understand the impacts of their behaviors.
The District measures the performance of our conservation programs at bath the
individual program level and at the portfolio level. Understanding both is critical as
some programs (lighting, show heads, commercial refrigeration, etc.) are very cost-
effective at the program level but other programs (appliance rebates, toilet
exchanges, etc.) may be less cost-effective but are well understood by our customers
and can be used to start the discussion of other opportunities to save energy, water,
money and live more comfortably. Below are some of our more popular and cost-
effective conservation programs.
Energy Conservation:
• Residential Energy Survey;
• Residential Green Partners (LED give -a -way);
• Appliance Rebates;
• Business Green Partners & Commercial Lighting Rebates;
• Commercial Refrigeration; and
• Custom Projects
Wafer Conservation:
• Water -Efficient Toilet Exchange &Rebate;
• Low -flow shower heads;
• Customer Leak Repair Rebate;
• Patricia S. Sutton Conservation Garden; and
• Custom Projects
The District - as a locally -owned, non-profit public electric and water utility - is
motivated to serve our customers at the lowest practical cost. That means helping
customers only use the energy and water that they need to maintain or improve their
quality of life. Most people understand that when they save energy and water, they
also save money. Many of our customers are surprised to find out that they can also
maintain the quality of life that they expect, conserve precious resources - and with
the extra money in their pockets - live more comfortably. Since 2008, the District has
performed EM&V annually on our conservation programs. Each annual report
calculates the lifetime energy savings created by that year's investments along with
the fully loaded costs to delivery the programs. From this, the District has tracked the
cost-effectiveness of the programs ($0.02/kWh to $0.05 kWh) along with the impacts
to load (1 % to 3% first year savings). As mentioned previously, each kWh saved by a
customers equates to �$0.10/kWh savings to the customer. Since 2008, the District
has generated over 200 Million kWh savings through our conservation programs
putting a potential $20,000,000 into our customers pockets with an estimated
$10,000,000 realized to date.
The District fully understands the value of conservation programs and, based on all of
4. FISCAL. IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact associate with this workshop item.
5. hECOMMENDATION
Receive this report and provide comments.
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Steven Poncelet
Public Information & Strategic Affairs Manag(
Michael D. Holley
General Manager