Dive Brief:
- Kansas regulators have rejected most of Kansas City Power & Light's efficiency proposal, concerned the cost of rebates did not justify their cost.
- The programs were proposed under the Kansas Energy Efficiency Investment Act (KEEIA), passed in 2014 to allow utilities to benefit from efficiency measures. The legislation is largely the same as the Missouri Energy Efficiency Investment Act, which allows KCP&L to run the programs in its service territory in that state.
- In Missouri, KCP&L accounts for 1.2 kW of capacity value from each thermostat it installs, he said, along with adjusting for 400 kWh in anticipated savings. The utility has been running those programs for four years.
Dive Insight:
Midwest Energy News points out that a handful of efficiency proposals did get the greenlight from the Kansas Corporation Commission, but it is unclear if the utility would move ahead with programs on an ad hoc basis. Among the approved programs is an educations campaign aimed at low-income customers, and some business demand response programs.
The Climate & Energy Project's Dorothy Barnett told the news outlet that the utility had made clear to regulators that its programs were “kind of an all-or-nothing thing ... I’d be surprised if they opt to go ahead with the low-income or education without the other programs included."
You can read more about KCP&L's efforts to roll out efficiency programs in Kansas here. But the utility's proposal for programs under the KEEIA law had detractors.
"The calculation of avoided capacity costs vastly affects the issue of whether or not the KCP&L [energy efficiency] programs are cost-effective," the Citizens' Utility Ratepayer Board said in testimony filed last month. "Thus, the proper calculation of avoided capacity costs is vital to the protection of ratepayers from [efficiency] programs which are not cost-effective."
CURB said it opposed the initial proposal of KEEIA recovery because the program's are not affordable and the utility "affords no ground for reasonable compromise." The utility has 15 days from the June 22 order to request rehearing.