BILL ANALYSIS � 1
SENATE ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
ALEX PADILLA, CHAIR
AB 2137 - Quirk Hearing Date:
June 17, 2014 A
As Amended: May 15, 2014 FISCAL B
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DESCRIPTION
Current law requires the California Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC), in consultation with the California Energy Commission
(CEC), to identify all potentially achievable cost-effective
electricity and natural gas efficiency savings and to establish
efficiency targets for electrical and gas corporations to achieve
pursuant to their procurement plans. (Public Utilities Codes ��
454.55, 454.56)
This bill requires the CEC and the CPUC to ensure that the Energy
Upgrade California website includes information related to energy
efficiency programs for nonresidential customers.
Current law establishes the Office of Small Business Advocate
(OSBA) within the Governor's Office of Business and Economic
Development (GO-Biz) the duties of which include advisory
participation in the consideration of all legislation and
administrative regulations that affect small businesses.
(Government Code � 12098 et seq.)
This bill requires the OSBA to dedicate a section on its website
to demand side energy management programs that are available to
small businesses.
BACKGROUND
Energy efficiency is California's top strategy for reducing energy
use and meeting the state's energy needs. Energy efficiency is at
the top of the "loading order," and California's utilities are
required to first meet their energy needs through cost-effective
energy efficiency measures before renewable and conventional
generation. The state's investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and, to a
lesser extent, the publicly-owned utilities (POUs), administer
hundreds of energy efficiency programs that provide education,
financial incentives and rebates for installing energy efficiency
appliances, lighting, windows, HVAC systems, and other
technologies and measures.
California has made substantial investment in a multitude of
energy efficiency programs financed with ratepayer and taxpayer
dollars, including approximately $1 billion per year in on-going
program funds from IOU ratepayers which is allocated and approved
by the CPUC in two to three year cycles.
Making a "Brand" - Starting in 2008 the CPUC's strategic plan
called for statewide marketing, education and outreach, with the
goal to "create and launch an integrated, statewide marketing,
education and outreach effort for energy efficiency including an
energy efficiency brand." The plan identified the corresponding
"goal results" as "high levels of awareness statewide of the value
of energy efficiency that leads to strong demand for energy
efficient products, homes and services." The goal is to be
achieved by creating an energy efficiency "brand," marketing
messages that offer bundles of demand-side management programs,
social marketing techniques to create emotional and intellectual
drivers, and a web portal outlining all energy efficiency programs
and measures available to customers.
Engage 360 (2009-2011) - The energy efficiency statewide marketing
brand that was developed following this decision was "Engage 360,"
a program administered by the IOUs through a contract managed by
Southern California Edison. However, in 2011 the CPUC opined that
the Engage 360 brand was costly and likely not producing enough
ratepayer benefit to justify its continuance. The program was
suspended and the utilities were directed to develop a strategy
and budget for transitioning toward the use of "Energy Upgrade
California" as a statewide umbrella brand for energy information
and encouraging demand-side management actions by residential and
small business consumers.
Energy Upgrade California (2010-2012) - The CEC picked up the
"Energy Upgrade" gauntlet and launched the whole house retrofit
program with associated marketing and a web portal. Utilizing
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding and working
with the CPUC and local governments, the primary purpose was to
motivate single-family and multifamily building owners to conduct
whole building energy efficiency upgrades, connect owners with
utility and state/local government rebates, provide creative
financing opportunities, and connect owners with participating
contractors to conduct the upgrades.
By 2012 the CEC reported that just 5,130 homes received upgrades
or qualified for rebates and 3,728 energy efficiency projects at
businesses were completed mostly by improvement to ventilation
systems and lighting controls. The CEC reported that $40.9
million went directly to rebates for homeowners and businesses and
$56.5 million was spent on administration, marketing and training
contractors.
Energy Upgrade California (2014) - A third marketing attempt is
now underway utilizing IOU ratepayer funds as mandated by the CPUC
in the current two-year energy efficiency portfolio program cycle.
The $43.5 million statewide marketing effort was not competitively
bid and is administered by the California Center for Sustainable
Energy which reports:
The goal of the initiative for 2014-2015 is that Energy
Upgrade California is re-launched as an integrated, umbrella
Statewide Marketing, Education and Outreach effort that
provides California residents and small business owners with
information about energy concepts, programs, services, rates
and benefits of taking action so that Californians (1) begin
to understand their energy use, the opportunities available
for them to act, and the benefits of their action, and (2)
begin to take well informed action to better manage energy."
The long-term goal is "that Californians understand the value
of energy efficiency, demand response, and distributed
generation which leads to demand for products, services, and
rates for their homes and businesses. This demand leads
Californians to take actions that save money, increase the
installation of customer-owned renewable energy technologies,
use energy more efficiently, and shift energy use away from
peak hours as needed.
The initial program audience is residential customers. CCSE
advises that the program will be expanded and launched for small
business customers this summer.
Utility Outreach - Each of the four investor-owned utilities
(PG&E, SCE, SDG&E, SoCalGas) and the larger publicly owned
utilities have dedicated web portals for business customers with
extensive, substantive information and multiple links to multiple
sites. There are more than 50 IOUs, POUs, and Community Choice
Aggregators (CCAs) in the state that serve the electricity and gas
needs of small business.
COMMENTS
1. Author's Purpose . California is investing billions of
dollars in energy efficiency retrofits for schools, homes and
businesses. These dollars have been made available through
the voter approved Proposition 39, which closed a tax
loophole that favored out-of-state corporations costing the
state around $1 billion annually, utility-run energy
efficiency programs for residential homes and businesses paid
for through ratepayer dollars, or the California Alternative
Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority that
provides a variety of different financing tools for energy
efficiency upgrades, just to name a few.
The problem is, while there is certainly a significant amount
of money being invested in energy efficiency upgrades around
the state, as well as different outreach programs for schools
and residential homes, small businesses have not received the
same amount of public outreach that they deserve.
For example, AB 758 (Skinner, 2009) required the CEC, in
collaboration with CPUC and other stakeholders to develop a
comprehensive program to achieve greater efficiency in the
state's existing building stock. Furthermore, the CEC and
CPUC recently developed a program called Energy Upgrade
California. The program is focused on the energy efficiency
home improvement market, not small business, to help educate
customers and contractors of the benefits of energy
efficiency upgrades and incentives available to them.
The state has not developed a comprehensive outreach program
for small businesses, which are the backbone of California's
ongoing economic prosperity. AB 2137 would help fill this
void by tasking the Go-Biz, as well as the CPUC, to dedicate
a section of their website to educate small business owners
of the energy efficiency programs available to them.
2. Questionable Impact . Since 2008 the CPUC and the CEC have
launched three marketing efforts in an attempt to transform
"energy efficiency from a simple ratepayer-funded program to
one that is more of a component of consumer lifestyles."
Those efforts have cost California IOU ratepayers tens of
millions of dollars, along with more than $100 million in
ARRA funds but produced few results. Each lackluster program
is addressed by spending millions more to invent a new brand
and yet another lackluster program.
The CPUC's new marketing tool "Energy Upgrade California,"
complete with a Golden Bear as the mascot, has no obvious
differences from the prior efforts and has yet to show it
will be any more effective than the last iteration of Energy
Upgrade or the Engage 360 effort before that.
This bill requires the CPUC and CEC to incorporate outreach
to non-residential customers in its program. The marketing
and web portal for Energy Upgrade California are currently
targeted to residential customers. The CPUC's decision
establishing the effort required the inclusion of small
business outreach. The administrator, CCSE, to the committee
indicates that small business will be incorporated this
summer. The author's stated intention is that the program
also be directed to small business. The use of
"non-residential" in the bill includes many more customer
classes than the author's intended audience - small
businesses. The author and committee may wish to strike
"non-residential" and insert small business. Additionally,
the program is under the jurisdiction of the CPUC so the
reference to the CEC should be deleted.
3. GO-Biz Website . With this bill the author is directing
GO-Biz to maintain a section on its website that reflects all
small business, demand side energy management programs
offered by the state, local governments (which the author
intends to include information such as Property Assessed
Clean Energy (PACE) financing programs), the more than 50
electric and gas utilities, and CCAs in the state. Attached
as appendix A is an outline of just some of the portals on
the small business website of one of the IOUs. Each of those
portals includes different rates, incentives, and programs.
An extensive administrative effort would be needed to
replicate those services on one state website and keep them
current as the rates and programs change. It might be more
efficient and effective for GO-Biz to link to utility and
local government financing programs. Additionally, this
website could be duplicative of Energy Upgrade California if
the program administrator does meet its obligation to expand
to small business customers. In that case, it might be more
efficient to link to the Energy Upgrade California portal.
ASSEMBLY VOTES
Assembly Floor (77-0)
Assembly Appropriations Committee (17-0)
Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee
(12-0)
POSITIONS
Sponsor:
Author
Support:
California Center for Sustainable Energy
Oppose:
None on file
Kellie Smith
AB 2137 Analysis
Hearing Date: June 17, 2014
APPENDIX A
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON
BUSINESS WEBPORTAL
Your Business:
My Account Benefits
Home and Business Area Network
Savings & Incentives
Energy Efficiency Express Solutions
Energy Efficiency Customized Solutions
Demand Response
Summer Discount Plan
Building Improvement
Multifamily Affordable Solar Housing
Solar Rebate
Solar Thermal Rebate
Savings By Business Type
Retail
Buildings
Restaurants
Lodging
Manufacturing
Food
Processing
Healthcare
Schools
Agriculture
Warehousing
Government
Water and Wastewater
Tools & Resources
Time-Of-Use
Business Energy Advisor
SCE EnergyManager
Benchmark Your Business
Interest Free Efficiency Financing
Landlords & Property Managers
Cool Planet
Electric Vehicles
Customers
Employees
Tenants
Fleets
Energy Management
Equipment & Installation
Electric Vehicles (cont.)
Tools & Resources
Basics
Rates
Generating Your Own Power
Solar Power
Self-Generation Incentive
Net Energy Metering
Renewable Energy Self-Generation Bill Credit Transfer
Consulting Services
Economic Development Services
Expansions & New Facilities
Building Operator Certification
Design & Engineering Services
Energy Education Centers
TRIO
Other Services
Rates
Small Business
Medium Business
Large Business
Electric Vehicle Rates
Agriculture & Pumping
Street & Outdoor Lighting
Safety On the Job
Classes & Events
Solar Classes
Energy Efficiency Financing
Financing Programs