IUB Approves Alliant Energy Five-Year Energy Efficiency Plan
(Des Moines) – A five-year energy efficiency plan filed by Alliant Energy was approved today by the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB), which issued a final order in the docket, EEP-2018-0003. The company’s plan, approved for 2019-2023, includes 15 energy efficiency and demand response programs tailored to customers’ needs with a proposed total budget of $237.6 million.
The plan as approved is expected to result in 611 gigawatts of electric savings and 2.5 million therms of natural gas savings over the five-year period. The company’s demand response program is expected to provide peak load management potential of 265 megawatts.
Alliant’s total budget under the plan is approximately $126.6 million for electric energy efficiency programs and $16.2 million for natural gas energy efficiency programs. Alliant’s demand response budget under the plan is approximately $94.8 million.
In its proposal, Alliant sought changes to a program that provides incentives to large commercial and industrial customers for reducing their usage during peak demand times. The company proposed a reduction in the monthly credit amount and an increased penalty for program participants that do not reduce usage. In its decision, the IUB approved the methodology used to calculate the reduced credit amounts, but found the noncompliance penalty unreasonable and did not approve the increased penalty amount.
Alliant also removed mandated legislative assessments to the Iowa Energy Center and Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research from its energy efficiency plan and reallocated the natural gas portion of the funds ($900,000) associated with the legislative assessment to supplemental weatherization projects for low-income customers. Alliant agreed to hold $4.5 million in reserve in case customer participation in electric programs exceeds amounts budgeted.
The IUB determined Alliant’s plan overall meets cost-effectiveness testing; includes programs for residential, commercial and industrial customer classes; and projects expenses that fall within budget parameters defined by Iowa Code.
Iowa law allows customers of rate-regulated utility companies to request an exemption from participating in an energy efficiency plan if a plan does not meet the threshold 1.0 score on a cumulative ratepayer impact test. Alliant’s plan score of 1.10 is higher than the 1.0 threshold, which means it does not trigger the ability for a customer to request an exemption.
In its order, the IUB directed Alliant to revise documents to clarify language specifying conditions that could lead to a call for curtailment by program participants and to revise its Plan budgets to remove the legislative assessment from the energy efficiency program.
