Pursuant to the Vermont Energy Act of 2009 Act 45), the Public Service Board is required to open and complete, by September 15, 2009, a "noncontested case docket" to determine whether the statutorily-defined default prices for qualifying Sustainably Priced Energy Enterprise Development ("SPEED") resources, "constitute a reasonable approximation of the price that would be paid applying the criteria" established by the Act. Pursuant to the Act, if the Board determines that the default prices are not a reasonable approximation, the Board must set interim prices by September 15, 2009. Act 45 further requires that the Board update these interim prices by January 15, 2010, following an opportunity for more in-depth examination.
In this Order we determine that, with the exception of farm methane resources, for which
we establish a higher interim price, the default prices established by statute are a reasonable
approximation of the price that would be paid for renewable resources when applying the criteria
established by the Act. In addition, we determine "the average residential rate per kWh charged
by all of the state's retail electricity providers weighted in accordance with each such provider's
share of the state's electric load," which the Act establishes as the statutory default price for
hydroelectric power, biomass, and wind resources over 15 kW.2 These determinations apply
during the first few months of the program and will likely change following the more detailed
determinations due on January 15, 2010. In this Order we establish the following interim prices
for renewable resources:
The Act provides the Board with the discretion to "consider different generic costs for
subcategories of different plant capacities within each category of generation technology."
Several participants advocated that the Board include increased "granularity" in its price
determinations. In this Order we conclude that based on the available information and the
limited time for first-stage interim analysis, although further granularity than that provided in the
statute may be appropriate, additional information and analysis are needed before reaching a
conclusion. We will reexamine this issue during the process leading to our determination of
prices by January 15, 2010.
Source: Vermont PSB. 9.15.2009. The full document is attached.
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PSB interim price order.pdf226.07 KB