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CPUC official outlines "total system benefit" metric and budget review cycle
Summary
CPUC staff told the Assembly committee the commission measures lifecycle and timing of efficiency savings with a dollar-based Total System Benefit (TSB) metric and reviews program administrator budget applications on a four‑year cycle.
Carrie Fleisher, director of distributed energy resources, natural gas and retail rates at the California Public Utilities Commission, presented the CPUC’s framework for overseeing ratepayer-funded energy efficiency. She cited authority in the Public Utilities Code and described how program administrators submit four‑year budget applications that the CPUC reviews to ensure portfolios are "just and reasonable".
Fleisher explained the commission has shifted from valuing single-year savings to the Total System Benefit (TSB), a dollar metric intended to value when savings occur and how long they last. "The statute that guides the CPUC's work in energy efficiency can be found in public utilities code 454.55 and 454.56," she said. Fleisher also reported that administrators invested roughly $795,000,000 in energy efficiency last year and that the CPUC recently issued a scoping memo for the 2028–2031 portfolio budget proceeding.
She told lawmakers the business application rulemaking and a separate policy-focused rulemaking together scope the outstanding questions about cost-effectiveness tests and portfolio metrics, and said parties have already filed ideas into the record. The CPUC expects testimony in the application proceeding within months and a proposed decision in Q2–Q3 of next year, she said.
