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Mr. DeFazio. I understand that on a regional basis, but I tried 

 to get that in an earUer question, I think it was to Mr. Golden, 

 about whether or not he would give a premium to conservation 

 within a load limited area; for instance, Puget Sound, with the 

 transmission problems into the Puget Sound area. 



If you can induce conservation in the Puget Sound area, it's 

 worth more than tr5'ing to induce conservation somewhere else. 



Mr. WiLKERSON. That deals with transmission. This has to do 

 with — a resource cannot be a resource if the electricity hasn't been 

 created. Investing in getting people to put in insulation does not 

 create any energy. It frees it up, but it has to be generated some- 

 place. 



Mr. DeFazio. Right. But if we say — if you project a ten percent 

 growth next year, we could get — save ten percent through con- 

 servation, then we wouldn't have to — there would be some addi- 

 tional transmission required because of the 



Mr. WiLKERSON. I'm not worried about the transmission. I'm 

 worried about if we get the existing users to give up ten percent 

 of their use so that we can use that energy to serve new load, part 

 of the cost of serving the new load is creating the energy that goes 

 over to the new load, and that's the existing generation system. 



Mr. DeFazio. Right. The same existing, but it wouldn't 

 require 



Mr. WiLKERSON. It wouldn't require building anything. 



Mr. DeFazio [continuing]. Incremental costs. 



Mr. WiLKERSON. It's a matter of how you do your comparison. So 

 the true cost of conservation as a resource would be the cost of gen- 

 erating the existing supply, Uke Bonneville's existing 



Mr. DeFazio. Okay. I get 



Mr. WiLKERSON. Do you see what I'm saying? 



Mr. DeFazio. Yes. I get your point. It's a different price. 



Mr. WiLKERSON. You'll end up with the same rate impacts then. 

 You end up with a little different threshold for conservation. It 

 doesn't diminish its importance. It just makes the comparison very 

 fair and it does not create a higher rate impact on consumers than 

 would generation. 



Mr. DeFazio. One other point you made which was about peak- 

 ing. Again, I would assume that your remarks generally were that 

 the peaking problems or capacity problems that we're headed to- 

 ward, you don't think that generation or any sort of — I mean, the 

 conservation or in any form or any sort of innovative programs that 

 have to do with time of day rates or off-peak metering or something 

 to deal with some of the peaks, you don't think there's any value 

 in those. 



Mr. WiLKERSON. Yes, yes. We haven't reached that yet, but shift- 

 ing load off-peak is something we're going to have to deal with as 

 we approach the peaking problems. Certain kinds of conservation 

 are very good from a peaking standpoint. You're making your dis- 

 tribution and transmission systems more efficient. It gives you the 

 biggest bang over the peak period than at other times. 



So those are very good. But for the most part, wind and solar 

 and many forms of conservation do not allow you to put that on 

 peak and they don't allow you to put it on in any particular part 

 of the region where you want, so moved around. 



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