125 



Mr. DeFazio. Lost opportunities meaning if I have some very 

 fine proposals fi*om a particular utility, but they have a shelf Ufe, 

 it's something they could do next year or the year after, they can 

 wait and we instead will go for something that someone offers to 

 us on a transient basis saying I've got a really good deal for you, 

 but you've got to contract for it now or it won't be here, like 

 Tenaska. 



Ms. HiCKEY. No, not referring to Tenaska. It basically has to do 

 with the manufactured housing program, new homes when the/re 

 built, industrial process change, something that will be in place for 

 a long time. 



Mr. DeFazio. So lost opportunities are long-term fixed capital ex- 

 penses, essentially, 



Ms. HiCKEY. That's right. 



Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Duncan? 



Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chairman, you have heard several times in 

 this testimony so far that the notion that the 660 megawatts is not 

 a ceiling. It is, I think it would be fair to say, an interim target, 

 but the target and the objective is all cost-effective conservation. 



I hope every witness who marches up here says exactly the same 

 thing. I hope that becomes so often heard it becomes cliche, be- 

 cause that's the objective. It is entirely possible, I would say almost 

 inevitable, that that 660 figure is going to change. There are some 

 pressures which will drive it down to some extent — if gas becomes 

 less expensive, as it has since the plan passed, that would tend to 

 drive the numerical target down. 



As efficiency technologies improve and their costs decline, and 

 the avoided costs may change and other circumstances, that will 

 tend to drive the amount of all cost-effective conservation up. So 

 it's, to some extent, a moving target and we need to remember that 

 it is that kind of a target. 



Mr. Chairman, I think I would agree with Sue and Randy that 

 on the conservation side, while there have been some startup prob- 

 lems and while I think the Council generally is concerned about 

 the impact of the rate decision and budget decisions on our ability 

 to maintain and, if possible, increase the pace of conservation ac- 

 quisition, there are also some opportunities in these budget-con- 

 strained times that will tend to shift Bonneville's focus and other 

 utilities and ours, as far as that goes, we hope onto ways of acquir- 

 ing the conservation resource more cost-effectively. 



You've heard about tiered rates. We are talking code enforce- 

 ment, shipping emphasis to commercial and industrial resource ac- 

 quisition. You raised the question of direct application of natural 

 gas, which is not a conservation strategy, but it is a load-shifting 

 strategy that has much the same effect. 



I guess if I were to identify what most concerns me about either 

 Bonneville's ability or its customers or ours as a region, our ability 

 to deliver all cost-effective conservation, it is that we have yet to 

 figure out how to treat conservation as a resource as the Act in- 

 tended. 



We still treat it frequently as a program with program costs or 

 we may be treating it as a budget shock absorber. We need to learn 

 to write the kinds of performance contracts— and that's both Bon- 

 neville and its customers— that properly allocate risk and reward, 



74-346 0-93-5 



