OVERALL FAIRNESS OF ADMINISTRATION. Despite a variety of minor disagreements and concerns, and two fundamental disagreements, Xxxxxx Seco Consulting’s overall judgment was that PG&E’s administration of its protocols to arrive at a short list for the 2009 RPS RFO was fair, unbiased, consistent, and reasonable. Some of the disagreements between Xxxxxx and the PG&E team fall into the category of choices that Xxxxxx would have not made if it were administering the solicitation, but that Xxxxxx agrees are choices a reasonable person could make if that person had different priorities or emphases regarding the weights assigned to evaluation criteria. Most of PG&E’s decisions to select for the short list Offers whose Project Viability Scores fell below its viability cutoff, on the basis of superior scores on attributes such as RPS Goals, supplier diversity, or technology diversity, fall into this category. Similarly, PG&E’s decision to reject from the short list the highest valued Offers it received on the basis of a preference for early on-line dates is one that Xxxxxx would not have made, but may be a reasonable choice for a utility that has obligations to achieve near-term targets for RPS compliance. PG&E did select for its short list two Offers that, in Xxxxxx’x opinion but not in PG&E’s, are sufficiently low in demonstrated project viability that these choices raise a question about the fairness and consistency of the decisions to select them. This disagreement represents a situation where reasonable observers can arrive at opposing opinions about the viability of a transaction given the same presented facts.
OVERALL FAIRNESS OF ADMINISTRATION. Despite a variety of minor disagreements, Xxxxxx Seco Consulting’s overall judgment is that PG&E’s administration of its protocols to arrive at a short list for the 2011 RPS RFO was fair, unbiased, consistent, and reasonable. Most disagreements between Xxxxxx and the PG&E team fall into the category of choices that Xxxxxx would have not made if it were administering the solicitation, but that Xxxxxx agrees are choices a reasonable person could make if that person had different priorities or emphases regarding the weights assigned to evaluation criteria. Xxxxxx believes that PG&E’s preferences and its choices are within the realm of “reasonable business judgment” that the CPUC allows IOUs to exercise in energy procurement.
OVERALL FAIRNESS OF ADMINISTRATION of disagreements, Xxxxxx Seco Consulting’s overall judgment is that PG&E’s decisions to select or reject Offers to arrive at a short list for the 2012 RPS RFO was reasonable and justifiable, overall. Most disagreements between Xxxxxx and the PG&E team fall into the category of choices that Xxxxxx would have not made if it were designing and administering the solicitation, but that Xxxxxx agrees are choices a reasonable person could make if that person had different priorities or emphases regarding the weights assigned to evaluation criteria. The choices with which Xxxxxx disagrees reflect (1) PG&E’s view of which utilities’ network upgrade costs should be counted in valuing Offers, (2) the relative priority PG&E assigns to some of the non-quantitative evaluation criteria (such as RFO Goals) vs. valuation, and (3) PG&E’s judgment about how much risk of project failure from viability issues to accept in making short list selections. Xxxxxx believes that in each case, PG&E’s preferences and its choices are within the realm of “reasonable business judgment” that the CPUC allows IOUs to exercise in energy procurement. Xxxxxx’x subjective judgment would differ from PG&E’s in making these choices, as might the judgment of some policymakers and other observers. Participants whose high-value Offers were rejected while lower-valued proposals were shortlisted might perceive PG&E’s choices as unfair, but the utility’s choices were in most cases rooted in evaluation criteria stated in the public solicitation protocol. Xxxxxx doubts however that an IOU should reject a high-valued Offer simply because the size of the proposed project is small, while selecting lower-valued Offers. While Xxxxxx believes that PG&E may be justified in its choice to omit transmission adders when valuing Offers for IID-interconnecting projects because those costs do not directly affect PG&E ratepayers, in Xxxxxx’x opinion the practice is not particularly fair. Also, nothing in PG&E’s public or non-public protocols suggests that the transmission network upgrade cost will not be applied for such projects, so this choice lacks transparency. On that basis, Xxxxxx’x opinion is that PG&E’s administration of its methodology was overall reasonable and justifiable but that the treatment of IID-interconnecting projects was less than fully fair.
OVERALL FAIRNESS OF ADMINISTRATION. Despite a variety of minor disagreements, Xxxxxx Seco Consulting’s overall judgment is that PG&E’s administration of its protocols to arrive at a short list for the 2011 RPS RFO was fair, unbiased, consistent, and reasonable.
