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energy efficiency savings to BPA £ind its customers. One of the fea- 

 tures that makes our company unique to the industry is our abiUty 

 to provide third-party financing. We beUeve that we are the only 

 independent energy efficiency company that offers non-recourse 

 project financing as an investment tool. 



By investing in our customers' energy efficiency projects, we ef- 

 fectively isolate the customers' financial risk from their capital risk 

 and avoid delays in dealing with third-party financiers. In this 

 way, we can make significant contributions to Bonneville's ability 

 to leverage hmited conservation dollars. 



Another area where we can play a partnership role with Bonne- 

 ville and its customers is in program design. We have a full com- 

 plement of sales, engineering and operations professionals to sup- 

 port project development and execution, quaUty control, and com- 

 munications, and we think we're able to provide Bonneville and its 

 customers with the staffing and expertise required to make these 

 programs succeed. 



Building long-term relationships and developing effective commu- 

 nications between the partners is the approach we feel must be em- 

 braced. In order to sustain these partnerships, sdl parties, utiUties, 

 customers, and developers, must have a stake in the performance 

 of the conservation resource. This is what Proven Alternatives 

 strives to do with its third-party project financing capabilities. 



Question 3, are there significant differences in the processes used 

 by BPA to acquire conservation, renewable and fossil resources? In 

 order to respond to a resource acquisition request fi'om Bonneville, 

 a tj^ical energy efficiency company like Proven Alternatives would 

 have to have the same procedural and administrative demands 

 placed on it as a large independent power producer. 



The energy efficiency industry, particularly in the northwest, for 

 reasons previously given, is small and very competitive. The level 

 of perforation required to respond to a conservation bid is similar 

 to that of a supply side bid. Companies like ours must carefully 

 balance the best use of our resources. 



We must weigh the costs in responding to administratively de- 

 manding bid requests with the benefits of developing projects di- 

 rectly with the customer, without having anything to do with the 

 utiUty company. 



Our experience with utility bidding practices across the country 

 is that the complexity, rigi(fity and focus on simple economic cri- 

 teria tend to hmit the program effectiveness to cream-skimming 

 targets which sacrifice lost opportunities, and we're not in the 

 cream-skimming business. 



Question 4, is BPA an effective indirect purchaser of regional re- 

 sources? Proven Alternatives has successfully completed projects 

 where BPA has been an indirect purchaser of the energy savings. 

 In all three cases where Bonneville programs were used, the 

 projects received the State of Washington's Governor's Award for 

 Energy Management. One project was the Columbia Basin College 

 in Richland, Washington. TTiat project saved $73,000 a year for the 

 school. 



Regarding the question regarding the Planning Council's role, 

 has it been properly exercised, we think that the 1991 power plan 



