They all have different appetites, but at this restaurant they will all be served the exact same meal. Of the 10 diners, 8-9 request that the meal be made from organic, locally grown ingredients, even if at a premium price. The remaining 1-2 diners want typical, wholesale ingredients, believing those to be the least expensive.
So the managers, chefs and waitstaff huddle up in the kitchen. They discuss the shelf life, availability, and ease of cooking different ingredients. They do the math and find that one recipe costs slightly more per calorie than the other, and decide for their customers that they'll only cook and serve the cheaper one.
This meal, according to a cost-benefit Rate Impact Measurement (RIM) test, is considered a "no losers outcome".
The current APS technical conference stakeholder workshops aim to appropriately value distributed energy (DE) by considering all relevant inputs, so as to formulate a fair electricity rate design that incorporates customers of solar energy. In order to do so, they've contracted extensive financial studies and run monetary cost-benefit analyses. The result - after much time and money - is that solar energy may or may not cost more for APS and its customers than traditional electricity sources.
These "results" are to be summarized and submitted to the Arizona Corporation Commission for a ruling on the valuation of solar energy.
Yet the primary input from Arizona's electricity customers is a strong preference for renewable energy rather than (and sometimes over) a cost savings. In a cost-benefit analysis, how can this preference properly be counted?
In particular, how can this non-monetary preference be counted when the Arizona Corporation Commission's primary mission statement is to "exercise exclusive state regulatory authority over public service corporations (public utilities), in the public interest"?
I don't yet know, but I am certain that Arizona's electricity customers are not getting what they ordered.
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