For those of you who know who Joseph Oldham is you likely are on his email distribution list and receive this update each week. We are grateful that Joseph has agreed to allow our little blog to re-post his weekly update. If you have an interest in the happenings of energy efficiency and local government throughout California this is the update for you! If you love the information here, but want more in depth features be sure to check out Joseph's quarterly newsletter, CURRENTS.

1. LGP Value and Effectiveness Survey Launched

Opinion Dynamics has been retained by the California Public Utilities Commission to assess the value and effectiveness of LGPs, particularly in terms of achieving the State of California’s Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan goals. Feedback from local governments is extremely important to the study.

If your organization is a part of an LGP – either as an implementer, a member government, or a local government that received funding for Strategic Plan projects - a staff person at your organization may have received this invitation to complete the survey during the week of April 20^th. The subject line for this invitation is “Local Government Partnerships Value & Effectiveness Survey Invitation.”

If you have received an invitation, please complete the survey. As a reminder, responses to this survey will be kept anonymous and the identities of respondents will not be revealed to any organization other than Opinion Dynamics. Should you have any questions, please contact Alan Elliott at alanelliott1@opiniondynamics.com

2. R.13-11-005 Workshop on Energy Efficiency Baselines

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) staff will be holding a Workshop on Energy Efficiency Baselines on April 28, 2015, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the CPUC Auditorium (505 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94102). Agenda, call in information, and request for comments are forthcoming.

In D.14-10-046, the Public Utilities Commission directed staff to work with the Energy Commission to increase awareness of how energy efficiency baselines are applied in relation to the volume of deferred retrofits and the ability of program administrators to target and accelerate such upgrades cost-effectively, which were identified in the utilities' 2015 funding requests.

Topics at the April 28 workshop will cover:

(1) The policy framework that establishes energy efficiency baselines;

(2) Input from energy efficiency stakeholders;

(3) The treatment of to-code and above codes savings for procurement planning;

(4) The scope of CPUC/CEC/Navigant's Existing Baseline Analysis; and

(5) The status of IOU pilots into alternative baselines.

The CPUC must accurately measure savings from energy efficiency in order to forecast energy savings to inform energy procurement planning, with the goal of avoiding construction of new non-renewable power plants. The CPUC has determined that in most cases, the appropriate baseline is set as the current code or standard applicable to that equipment, as equipment will naturally be upgraded to the code or standard level when it is replaced. The CPUC currently allows exceptions to this policy, such as when the IOU program is shown to influence the "early retirement" of functioning, yet inefficient equipment. However, some stakeholders argue that the existing condition should be the norm, not the exception.

The CPUC, Energy Commission, and Navigant are preparing an Energy Efficiency Baseline Analysis is to examine the appropriateness of using the code or existing conditions baseline as the default baseline to estimate energy efficiency program savings for different types of measures, and the implications for future Title 20 and 24 updates, the demand forecast, and ratepayers.

For questions, please contact Dina Mackin at 415-703-2125 or Dina.Mackin@cpuc.ca.gov.

3. Lead Commissioner Workshop on Strategies Related to Benchmarking and Local Government Challenge in the Draft Existing Buildings Energy Efficiency Action Plan

The California Energy Commission Lead Commissioner for the 2015 Integrated Energy Policy Report (2015IEPR) will conduct a workshop on strategies related to Benchmarking and Local Government Challenge in the draft Existing Buildings Energy Efficiency Action Plan.

Commissioner Andrew McAllister is the Lead Commissioner. Other Commissioners from the Energy Commission and California Public Utilities Commission may also attend or participate in the workshop.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

9:00 a.m.

CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSION

1516 Ninth Street

First Floor, Art Rosenfeld Hearing Room

Sacramento, California

(Wheelchair Accessible)

Remote Access Available by Computer or Phone via WebEx

Presentations and audio from the meeting will be broadcast via our WebEx web meeting service. For additional details on how to participate via WebEx, please see the notice at: https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/Lists/DocketLog.aspx?docketnumber=15-IEPR-05

Computer Log on with a Direct Phone Number:

- Please go to https://energy.webex.com and enter the unique meeting number

926 752 573

- When prompted, enter your information and the following meeting password meeting@9 . (Please note that password is case sensitive.)

For more information:

https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/Lists/DocketLog.aspx?docketnumber=15-IEPR-05

(If link above doesn't work, please copy entire link into your web browser's URL)

And that is all for this week!