Utah PSC hears Rocky Mountain Power plan for community clean-energy program; parties debate timing, billing and consumer protections

Salt Lake City — The Utah Public Service Commission on Monday heard hours of testimony on Rocky Mountain Power's application (Docket 25-035-06) to implement a Community Clean Energy Program that would let customers inside participating local-government boundaries be automatically enrolled unless they opt out.

Rocky Mountain Power counsel Ashley Walker introduced company witnesses and Craig Eller, the company's senior vice president for business development and customer experience, summarized the proposal as an "optional opt out offering for Rocky Mountain Power customers located within participating community boundaries with the objective of serving those customers with 100% ... clean energy while preventing any cost or risk shifts to non participating customers or the utility," he told the Commission.

Under the company's plan, the Schedule 100 rider would collect program participant charges to reimburse startup costs, capitalize an administrative reserve and fund a resource reserve, then pay down program obligations. The company has proposed that participant revenues "first reimburse the startup costs, then fund the administrative reserve fund, followed by the low income program, and finally, the resource reserve fund," Eller explained in his testimony summary.

Rocky Mountain Power said it supports an initial notice and three-billing-cycle opt-out period but will not oppose the Community Renewable Energy Agency's request to extend the no-fee initial cancellation period to six months. The company also described a multi-month implementation timeline that depends on communities adopting ordinances, system billing modifications and contract terms with resource developers.

Municipal leaders and the agency emphasized affordability as a central design constraint. Christopher Thomas, Salt Lake City's sustainability project coordinator and a member of the agency design team, said the Board prefers an initial average residential impact of roughly "$3 to $4 per month" and that the agency wants to be able to present a simple upfront price to residents.

Company pricing work also surfaced in the hearing. Lee Elder, who adopted the direct testimony of the company's tariff witness, said the company's proposed initial Schedule 100 design included an energy-based charge and a separate low-income surcharge; his summary listed an initial energy-based rider of 0.5683 cents per kilowatt-hour supplemented by a 10-cent monthly low-income surcharge that would produce an approximate $3.84 monthly bill increase for a 675 KWh residential customer at the modeled assumptions.

Commissioners and intervenors focused on three areas: timing and schedule, consumer notice and opt-out procedures, and protections to ensure nonparticipating customers are not made to bear program costs. Philip Russell, counsel for the Community Renewable Energy Agency, used the company's Figure 1 schedule to highlight that communities would have 90 days after a commission order to adopt ordinances and that the company estimates an additional five months to prepare notices and billing systems before implementation.

Russell and others also raised the near-term federal production tax credit deadline as a scheduling risk: if the commission delayed program approval until a program resource is chosen, the company said, the schedule would shift by roughly seven months and could affect developers' ability to meet the begin-construction deadline for tax-credit eligibility.

The Commission did not resolve the contested policy choices at this hearing. Instead, the session admitted multiple parties' testimony into the record and set follow-up proceedings. The Chair adjourned with scheduling instructions and a public witness hearing later that evening.

What happens next: The Commission will consider the admitted testimony, take additional evidence in subsequent sessions and decide whether to approve program design, the initial rider, reporting requirements and the procedure for valuing and approving program resources. Parties said resource-level approval and valuation are likely to be the most contested remaining matters.