Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: We're live.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back, everybody. It is Wednesday, February 11. We are the House Energy Digital Infrastructure Committee, and we are here taking testimony on h seven twenty seven, an act relating to sustainable data center employment, or deployment. Struggling today with the names of bills. I'm rep Kathleen James from Manchester.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Scott Campbell from Saint John's.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Richard Bailey from Mobile two. Chris Morrow, Windham, Zebennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia two. Christopher Howland, Rutland four.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Dara Torre, Washington two. Laura Sibilia, Windham two.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Great. And who do we have?

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Dylan's with you and I. Good.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Ada Lee Perry, the Christ Infants.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Allison Essex, the Vermont Arch for a Clean Environment. Hey. Kills Ocean from Bunbury, Vermont.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Super. Jane Gilbert from Southworth. Great. Alright. For the record,

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: hi. Candice Morgan from Green Mountain Power, and with me today.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Cam Torre from Green Mountain Power.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Great. I'm just joining Zoom. Sorry. I had to restart quickly. So the first testimony or the first bit of testimony that I'm here for today with Cam is on h H727, which is the data center bill. We have a couple of slides that we wanted to walk the committee through today and happy to answer any questions along the way. Then I think I'm here afterwards on a different topic. Alright. One second. Sorry.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I'm just having to get my Zoom ready to go.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Great. Before Alright. We get into our slides, I just wanted You see me here from time to time, but I wanted to give Cam an opportunity to introduce himself a little bit, talk about his background, how long he's worked at GMP, and then we can dive into talking about some of the analysis that we've done related to data centers and also some of the considerations that we've seen from other states and some of the work that's out there as well. I wanted to preface it all by saying now that we are obviously here to speak about just the electric system components. Right? I know that there's a lot of considerations that are out there related to data centers that are worthy of discussion, but not something that we can specifically probably speak to. So I wanted to focus it on that today.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Great.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Great. My name is Cam Torre. Thanks for having us here today. I've been at GMP for about three years. I'm a system planning engineer. So what that means is, you know, if new generation wants to interconnect, if new node wants to interconnect, I perform studies or lead studies to make sure that that all happens reliably and that we can operate and plan the grid in a reliable way. And I also do integrated resource planning and have performed some of the analysis here that we'll be presenting for data centers and size and location of data centers and how can we think about this as Vermont. Yeah, as Candice said, really our message today with data centers is that with the correct size and the correct location, these data centers can be kind of a net benefit for costs on the electric system. You're adding more load to the system, so your costs are you know, it can drive costs down for all electric customers by having this additional load. And really, you know, the first thing that we that we wanted to look at when this topic came up is is where and what size data centers. I we talked about large loads, and that's kind of been the hot word recently, large loads data centers. But what is large in Vermont? What is kind of an appropriately sized load for Vermont? Is a question that I think people were struggling to kind of wrap their heads around, you know, and I don't think there was an answer to that. So, you know, we what I did was we looked at five different spots across the state and added 10 megawatts of load at a time and then ran the whole, like, ISO New England transmission model on it, taking each transmission line out. This is kind of standard, like, transmission planning procedures to make sure that you can take outages and still operate a reliable grid. And we just started scaling the loads up higher and higher until we saw issues with the grid and got really this 50 to 200 megawatt range as as what a Vermont sized data center could look like connected to the one fifteen k v bulk transmission system. Really, you know, we think about when I think about Vermont's transmission system, Southern Vermont is really where there's the most transmission capacity. It's where Vermont Yankee was. You know? It's kind of there was a large interconnection there. So there is more room there today to interconnect to up to 200 megawatts. And as you work north, there are fewer lines, a little bit less capacity without having to upgrade the system. So, yeah, it was kind of like a bounding exercise that we did at GMP to kind of get a ballpark on what size is reasonable to see on your system.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Go ahead, Rutland.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Are you getting it done further sides the the cost benefits?

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yes. Yes.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: I'll I'll hold off for that.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, next slide. So so you're gonna explain how adding load can lower cost? Okay.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I was I think we all have that question. Okay.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Alright. Great. So but then I do have some questions about this slide. So I should have pulled it out in front of me. What is the size? 20.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: 20 is what? Definition in our belt.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: 20. Isn't the def okay. So you were testing and modeling loads that were bigger.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. That's right.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: It in fact, at times, significantly bigger than the ones where

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Than the threshold we're setting. Okay.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: So That's one question I

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: have. Yeah. What what I did just on that is, you know, I started at 10 and and started at 10 megawatts, twenty, thirty, just to really see, you know, at what point is is it too much.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Okay.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: And where's Granite? Mhmm. And

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: That's in the Barrie area. Graniteville? Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Is it a

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: a it's a velvet substation. Oh, it's a velvet. Yeah. Substation. Okay.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Great. Okay. Porch. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: On the East Side Of Of Berry up above Wilmington.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Cool.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: William Williams stuff. William Williams. Thank you.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: How many amps they got? Don't

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Oh, okay. I don't know. I don't know.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: So

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I just wanna stick a I wanna stick a pin in the you know, we would have enough floor here as I've shared with you, and I'll share with the committee now, you know, being able to I have no doubt that we would figure out power. Mhmm. It's where's it coming from and what's the effect. And, you know, is that causing a coal fired plant to emerge somewhere in Ohio? You know? So understanding where we would get that from, where the isotope isotope mixed from isotope. So just a little pin there. And my other is on the do you know I don't know if this is an appropriate question or not, so I'm gonna ask it anyway. We'll see. On the Vernon site, do you know what the max was that you tested there that was

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: I think off the top of my head, it was that 200 number. Okay. But this, you know, this is kind of preliminary. I think I think the ISO and Belco would would have there's a there's a more stringent process. Right? Yes.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Thanks.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: And then you're hearing from Belco tomorrow, so they could talk through kinda how that looks from their perspective and then up to the region as well.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And and that that way sorry. One other thing. And and also, obviously, the effect on on rate, which is a a a whole further, you know, calculation and projection. Sure. You know? But it's just that's obviously what we're interested in. Absolutely. Right.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: It's a good segue.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Great segue.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. So the next slide. So I think you've all certainly seen the headlines and the general narrative around data centers, particularly in other parts of the country, Mid Atlantic, Southern parts, other places that they have been really showing up in full force and kind of being a, you know, an area that has been attributed to rising prices in those regions. Vermont, as you all have talked about both with the department and with us, we've come in and spoken about sort of our regulatory structure and how things work in Vermont, we're we're in a very different regime than those other regions where we

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: are

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: fully regulated. And the way that additional load shows up on the system that it actually can help reduce those all costs for our other customers because you're spreading the fixed cost of the system over a greater number of kilowatts. And so when we look at what this could mean for customers, it would actually like I said, Cam said, the right size and the right location could bring on additional load, would help reduce the overall rate need for the rest of our customers. And that's driven by a couple of things. One is that the interconnection upgrades and other things that might be triggered from a large load connecting, those are paid for by that customer who's showing up and asking to connect to our system. And so that's the analysis that Cam has talked about that they do with the engineering team whenever someone says, hey. I wanna show up and connect here. We do the study and the work to talk about what it would look like and what those costs would be. And then that customer who's the one that's interconnecting is the one who pays for those. So it's not getting spread out across all of our other customers. Yeah.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So what you're saying is the the way that you charge large load large load customers Mhmm. Means that we're not all sharing the cost of that. You're charging them in such a way that

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: so that the customer who is the large load, whether it's a data center or a manufacturer or others, the cost to upgrade the system to get them connected are paid by that customer only as part of their capital expenditure and their sort of overall plant design. And then we all benefit from The additional load that's coming system. Exactly. And so we have an existing rate known as the GMP rate 70, which is what I've highlighted here that is structured for those larger loads currently. It would, based on the analysis of the and the work that was done to determine the customer charge for that class of customers, their peak usage, their demand charges, all of that results in what is a net benefit that would flow to the rest of our customers and help, like I said, reduce the overall rate need for GMP customers. That would be true, like I said, whether it's a data center or just additional load. We've talked a lot about the benefits of electrification and additional load from heat pumps and EVs and other things as well. It's obviously a much more concentrated amount of that, but it is the same general net benefit to all customers from a cost

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: perspective. And

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: the definition of large load is?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. This was based on a large industrial customer that was a GND customer, but no longer is,

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: and they were about 50 megawatts for this rate design. Megawatts per year.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Like, 50 megawatts is, like, kind of peak. That's right. Yep.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Well, so I'm looking at your at your charges here. KWH charge about 13¢ on peak, 12.9¢ on peak, and and, almost 10¢ off peak, which so what what what what how many kilowatt hours a month would a large load country use, I guess, but I'm gonna at.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: I can follow-up on that one. I don't

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: have it offhand. Yeah. Yep.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: So what what what are some of the we we have this larger load spread over the customer base, the lower fixed cost per customer charges. Right? But then then what about the vulnerabilities to the the other customers? Like, if there's if there's generation restriction for some reason Mhmm. You know, the data center who's requiring 99.9% uptime. Mhmm. You know? How does that affect the other customers on on the distribution system?

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. So that's a great question. I think we sort of get into the requirements. So when a customer wants to interconnect, there's a few study processes that happen. There's Act two fifty, which requires an ability to serve letter from the utility, and that goes directly to the engineers of the utility. That then starts a study where we say, alright, what size wire is needed? What protection? Are there new fuses that are needed? Really, what upgrades to the system to make sure that the new load is not adversely impacting the rest of the customers on the transmission or distribution system.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: In your analysis, did you, assess, like, where the the new capacity would come from? Would that come from the ISO New England rate I mean, generation mix, or would that be part of the going from Hydro Quebec, or is that I mean, is there a way to ease that out a little bit?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. Absolutely. And certainly, I think that the analysis that we did here was obviously based on sort of what we have right now for our costs and our portfolio, right? Depending on when it showed up, obviously there would be different resources available and other things as well, but figuring out how and where we're gonna be procuring that

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: as

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: part of our overall work at the power supply team does to find those lower cost renewable resources. And then certainly, yeah, we blend in what we have used on average for that New England system mix as well depending on what the needs are and what the weather's doing and all the other considerations that

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: we do in an

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: average year. That that's how we kind of approximated it for this analysis here.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Right.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. Yeah. The work done here was kind of blind of, you know, this is really like a a what size and at what location plus portfolio mix. Yep. But

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: presumably, these loads would be under the rest restrictions as well.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Because we would be serving them as the utility. And so they would, it would flow from what our obligations are in that as well. And so it would flow down to their usage. Yep. Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Oh, yep. Sibilia?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: We're into dangerous territory, I'm sure. So being able to service increased load, I expect that that's the case for all of our utilities in the direction that they're heading in considering we're moving towards beneficial electrification, and that's really the question of state. So, I'm less worried about your ability to procure power as I am about what power it is. And with the res, we we have credits that we can trade. And so that is something that I'm gonna keep thinking about. I don't know if there's a way to, outside of our res, further

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Restrain where the power is coming from?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Restrain well, restrain if it's get if it's coming from high emission sources as opposed to I mean, I know I know one way we can do it Mhmm. Which is bring your own power. But, you know, are there other ways that allow us to, for sure, not be creating more emissions out in a somewhere?

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: And I feel like

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: there was something else that's probably far enough. Do you have any sorry.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Think that's a great Those are all great points and considerations for sure. And I know, you know, looking, like, specific to our region and what the reliability work is that the ISO does and others, think, is a good place to sort of start and think through and something that I believe Velco will speak to a little bit about what the process sees are happening at ISO related to large loads and considerations that they need to planning for because as we talked about at the beginning, it hasn't really shown up in the same way that it's been showing up in some of the other regions of the country, and so they're looking to what's happened there to help prevent some of those same impacts from happening in this region. I think they'll be able to speak to kind of like that resource adequacy and some of

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: the other work that's happening as we consider these facilities as well. So And then just one more question I might and and that is, you know, we don't have you forever today, but will you be doing any kind of an overview of, you know, data center drops in from out of space. Here's what GMP does. You know, like, kinda walk us

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: through the process. Totally. We wanted to kind of, like, level set on the, like, the narrative that's out there. I because I know the cost questions have been Yes. Popping in people's minds. And then also kind of the, like, analysis and the work that we have been doing to prepare for exactly about data center, where to drop it from outer space. And so, I think this might be the right slide, Pam, focus Yeah. On a little This is great. Where we can click through kind

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: of yeah.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: If someone shows up and knocks on our door and says, hey. I wanna connect. Right. I say, hey. Here's Cam. And yeah. Yes.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: So, really, the point of this slide is to highlight that their you know, customers have different needs. Load has different needs. It connects at different levels on the system. It might be on your distribution or your sub transmission or your bulk transmission, and all of those different pathways have like, you know, there's a process that exists today to study those loads and to make sure that they're served reliably and that they don't have an adverse impact on the rest of the customers. So, know, GMP, we're a distribution utility, so that's kind of our our bread and butter is connecting loads on the distribution system. That's the lines that you see out, like, on the side of the road. It's, you know, 12,000 volts roughly. This you know, if if a project if someone is building a project that requires an act two fifty permit, and they have a load, they are required to get an ability to serve letter from the interconnecting utility. So for GMP, that looks like they will email this list that we have publicly on our website, and it comes to our engineers. And the engineer in charge of that area will then say, okay, let's talk to the electrician. Let's get a sheet of what size motors are you putting in, how many heat pumps, EVs, all these questions about what type of load are you putting in. And then the engineers will make a determination on what, if any, upgrades are needed to make sure that customer is interconnected reliably. And those costs are ultimately paid by customer, those upfront interconnection costs. And the same, in Vermont, we have a sub transmission system, which is 35 kilobytes to 69 kilobytes. This any And changes to that system would require an act two forty eight permit,

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: that

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: CPG. And so that's adding or moving as a pull on a transmission system, adding breakers, really any change that you can think about that if you're putting in a large facility, you're gonna need to make these changes. So then you're into the CPG process, the same kind of study of how can we interconnect this reliably and then all of the other requirements that come along with that. And thinking about, you know, data centers, this 50 to 200 megawatt range, this would be connecting on the bulk transmission system or, you know, the really big lines that you see. Those are 115,000 volts or higher, and this is when the ISO gets involved. Any changes to that system require a system impact study, and we'll probably talk more about this tomorrow and that whole process. Just, again, to put

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: a pin here. So the federal interconnection rules, I think, are are changing or have changed.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: They are under review, I think. Under review. Yes. That's right.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yep. So I imagine Shana will talk

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: with us latest and greatest on that. Yep.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: But that those are specific to the bulk transmission connection when you need to connect there. Correct. As opposed to That's right. Integer distributions. Correct. Okay. Yes. And

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: just so you don't forget that you're talking to people who don't really understand this.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Could you give us some kilowatt, megawatt maximums on on on these different connection types?

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. Yeah. So it's really location matters, but I think, like, less than five megawatts is maybe distribution. Above five, you're thinking sub transmission. Transmission is maybe 20, but it's all really location dependent on and really also what the customer's needs are and and what type of equipment they're running. Just a whole host of things. We

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: have the transmission map behind you.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Oh, yeah. That's great. Yeah. I can't see that. Yeah. And

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: and transmission or subtransmission. So I know where distribution lines are. Sure. And I know where transmission lines Yeah. Where the where the subtransmission lines. Same.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: You know, they're they're in between substations. You'll see them here and there. They're they look kind of like distribution lines. Okay. Yeah. Just a little bit bigger. That's the that's the best way I can

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: describe it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. K. Do they run between substations or substations in transmission? Well, I answered.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. Yep. So the the the bulk system, which is shown on this map, that's the, you know, one fifteen and above.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: That comes to the sub substation. Yeah. And then from there, was it could which is there something between some facility between a sub transmission line and a distribution line? Yes.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yep. Yeah. There'd be a substation Another substation. Yep. With a transformer to step down the voltage to a little bit. Yeah.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Thanks.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Can we go to the slide before Sure. Sure. Sure. So when we're we're talking about process, and so we've got f two fifty coming in, looking at ability to serve, And then two forty eight Mhmm. And that would include a CPG. Correct. Is there a process that is looking at cost or impact on rates that is that would be required?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: That is a good question. And I wanna follow-up with probably a more straightforward answer or more direct answer. I would say though in general that we at GMP specifically are in a multi year regulation plan. We have a, you know, a petition for the next one as well. As part of that work, there's our we look every year at our base rates, which includes a load forecast. And I think as part of that review, there would also be consideration for how new load is helping to drive down rates and sort of what our overall rate need is and when we're asking for that. There would be, I think, a review and consideration for where and how some of that new load has showed up. But I'd wanna double check on sort of the general processes that we just outlined to see if there would be a specific touch point to capture that as well.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Can I just repeat what I think you said, which is you're in a multi year rate plan, which requires annual review? Yes. When you are coming in for your annual review, you would be looking at load growth. Mhmm. And it would be the department Mhmm. Would be commenting.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: They be Yep. They would be commenting. We share that forecast as part of our, when we file that annual rate case. Yeah. So the department, you know, would be looking at it and reviewing its accuracy and asking any questions that they have about how it's being, implemented and then ultimately providing a recommendation to the public utility commission. Say yes. Do you agree? Or direct us to do something else with that. Yep.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So if the department looked and said, you know, we don't think you're applying safe the savings the way that you should. Yep. Like, say, PUC, we want you we want you to open up a rate case? Correct. Yes. Yep. Yep. K. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Do they have any of

[Unidentified Committee Member]: these big loads to be come in and wanna be their own utility like the builders foundries, or would they all be, like, Lawrence, a a GMP customer?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: That's a great question. I mean, I think in our obviously, in our territory, the default would be a GMP customer if they had if they were looking to create a similar structure as currently global boundaries, then that would require a petition to the PUC.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But you know what global boundaries load is compared to

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. It's like fifty

[Unidentified Committee Member]: fifty megawatts. 50 megawatts. So so you're you're sizing something a little smaller than do you know what Omnia's load is down at the floor itself? Not at the top of the head.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I also have a question on your slide. Under sub transmission, it looks like

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: I realize that. I didn't no. I just didn't finish deleting it. That's what it was. There wasn't supposed to be a second. I don't know if you wanna speak anything on the new load and the shape.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. I mean, so this slide really is, you know, just just to highlight that all loads are are different. I think we we think about data centers and large loads as all looking the same and requiring the same things. They don't you know, there's there's some data centers that have more flexibility in their in their loads, and some are more of a blocked load. You know, think of like a ski resort in the on a cold week, you know, making snow all the time. That's and then kind of I'm thinking about, like, a manufacturing facility where the workers come in and manufacture it for eight hours a day, and then load kind of drops out down in the evening. So we know how to handle all these different load profiles and how to interconnect them reliably. So there there you know, there's processes in place to make sure that this is done reliably.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: That's right.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: That's the end of our slides, but I know we are here for or I'm here for another topic, but we're happy to answer any additional questions and, of course, come back anytime as you all are, I know, just kinda starting this conversation and thinking through what the Vermont response should be and prepare for. But we wanted to hopefully, this is helpful from, like, giving you an overview of kinda how we're thinking about it and where those processes will play out and how we'll

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: be engaging on it and what that will look like for us. Have you had any queries? I wondered, though.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: If you wondered if that's gonna be a question.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: It's a good one. Yeah. The

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: answer is yes. You know, as I think it as the overall landscape is shifting, there's I think there's a lot of speculation and a lot of thinking out there around where else are they gonna show up. We've had a couple inquiries about, I think, just trying to understand,

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: yeah, some of those points that we

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: hit on in the beginning about where the system it could look and make the most sense. Nothing solid or solidified yet, but, yeah, some general checking in type inquiries that happened.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Is this any of this load included in your integrated resource plan for the next submission? And if I'm not incorrect, the integrated resource plan looks out ten years.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: A great question. I'll let Cam speak a little bit to what's in our current one that just got approved. But I will say as part of the order that approved that IRP, the PUC specifically asked us to incorporate large load analysis more specifically in our next IRP, which will be starting practically tomorrow as those things go. So it will be more spelled out in our next one.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Think that is right now.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And when you did, what was the ballpark monthly bill? Did that

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. That's similar to representative Campbell's question earlier. I can follow-up with that information.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: I don't have it on hand. It's been a little bit, so that has been an active rate. Great.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: That was really

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: helpful. So that your testimony is posted on the website, I assume

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: it will be. Yeah. I sent it to Alex. Great. Got those slides and, yeah, available if there are any follow-up questions as you

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: work through this one. Thank

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: you. Great.

[Cam Torre (Green Mountain Power)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I'm trying to Great. I think we should just move forward. So we're gonna now turn our attention to H seven fifty three, which is an act relating to utility service disconnections and right payer protections. And we're gonna hear from and we have some new folks. Are you guys gonna go one at a time? Yeah. Okay.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: I don't have slides for this one. Okay. Happy to follow-up if there are specific items that come up that would be useful, but I just didn't have a

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: chance to put them together. Alright.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Candice Morgan, for the record, Green Mountain Power. I wanted to start off today by speaking about our experience with disconnects and our work that we've done in that space with our customers. And then also speak a little bit more specifically about our energy assistance program, which I've talked about a little bit when I've been in here before. But just wanted to kinda clarify a couple points and then really happy to answer any questions that you have as well. So we, at GMP, we have seen an overall decrease in our disconnections on an annual basis When we look back about ten years, get through the, you know, kind of weirdness that was the pandemic, and then look out now, we are below the number of disconnects that we were heading into 2020. So at 2019, we were closer to 10,000 and now we're about 8,000 customers that are disconnected in a year. Okay. Not always specifically, like, 8,000 different customers. Right? It's hard to parse it out too much, but that's the total number of actual disconnects that happened in a year. The vast majority of those are reconnected the same day as well through different options that we have for payment and work with the customer on a payment plan or other arrangements in that space. So, overall, we're seeing about a 25% decrease when we look out back ten years to now in terms of the actual number of disconnections. Yes. Oh, go ahead. Are

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: you able to quantify further the best connection or reconnected

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Same day? The number that I got from the team was in

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: the, like, 85% range. It's gonna require a little they actually thought it would be a higher number than that, so we're doing a little bit more of a deeper dive on the data, but it was definitely in the mid to high 80% range. Can

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: you remind me and I'm I'm sorry, can you just I I was trying to find my notes, and now I can't I can't easily put my hands on them. But so you said that you guys have seen overall a drop in the total number of disconnects from ten years ago. Correct. And I'm trying to square that up. We had a conversation with Carol Flint about the governor's assertion that disconnections have risen sharply over the past couple of years. And I'm trying to we talked about that. Yeah. But with Carol, and I'm trying to because of COVID. Yeah. Can you shed light?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Absolutely. Happy to. So, yeah, 2020 and 2021 and a little bit into 2022 were obviously very different years on all sorts of levels. Right? But especially too when you look at what the work that was happening around disconnects and from a utility perspective. So, was a statewide moratorium on disconnections during 2020 and 2021. I don't remember the exact dates that it went to, but I think I saw it in someone's slides that you'll hear from shortly. And so that meant that there was no or very minimal disconnections were happening during that time. There were some exceptions and we would work with the department on doing that before we actually moved forward with any of those disconnects. But also during that time, and really importantly, I want to emphasize this point, the legislature appropriated dollars to help support customers that were going through like a lot of dollars from some of the state recovery dollars that were in Vermont. That really was critical to making sure that while we were in this period of time of no disconnects, that customers were on emerging from the pandemic with overly high balances, which would ultimately be paid for by all other customers if they were not able to make those payments. That's how this works. We were able to connect our customers with one that's close to around $20,000,000 statewide of assistance to help them in that space. And so when you look at numbers kind of right out of the pandemic and 2022 being kind of the first year that was a normal ish year in terms of what we were able to do, The numbers were a little lower than average as we were kind of all getting back up to those processes. And then even still, so we saw a little bit of an increase, I guess, could say from 2022 to some of the years right after that. But now that we're back in a much more normal cycle, we're looking at numbers that are lower than what they were in 2015 and 2016.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's really helpful. Thanks, Ian.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And and I'm sure you're gonna well, you're probably gonna talk about this. What does it cost for a and a reconnect for for a customer?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Sure. So we have no b when it's done remotely for a disconnect or reconnect. If a customer has either opted out of having a smart meter or there's other safety reasons and we need to have an actual truck and folks go, there is a fee associated with that, which I

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: can follow-up against a specific number on.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And is it and we are you gonna talk about the process also? We we heard about the process before.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Yeah. I yes. If that's helpful too. I I know the the committee has heard from both the department and from others in this space. And the one thing I also wanna mention is that rule three dot 300, which is the PUC rule. Yeah. We have it. We have that governs the disconnection process for all utilities was just recently updated. And so we've been working to implement all those changes and have implemented those changes. And a lot of the connection points and the work and notification process that's built into that, I think, is really what we can attribute to seeing the actual number of disconnects go down because folks are getting multiple touch points from GMP and our team, opportunities to engage and to work with us to either get on a payment plan or make arrangements, get connected to the resources that are out there across the state, whether it's a community action agency or a parent child center or some of the folks that you've heard from as well, and find a way to pay the the bill. And so that's we're really pleased that the numbers are lower than what they are now because it shows, I think, a really good collective effort in making this the best. You know, I understand it's a very it's a very tough situation when folks are in this space, you know, we're really proud of the work that we're able to do with our customers around here. In terms of the actual process around disconnection, I could walk through kind of just like a high level timeline noting, of course, that it is you know, it can be case by case or there can be some movement on either side of the date range. But if you start at day zero, a bill is sent and delivered to the customer. The bill is due twenty seven days after that first payment date. On day 30, if a payment hasn't been made or received, then it would be considered past due at that point in time. And then day 35 is when the collection process starts. So day 35 would be the first, like the earliest possible day. Billing days and weekdays and weekends can change this one way or another. The earliest possible day for a disconnect notice to be sent to a customer would be day 35. And then day 50, past the initial date of the bill, would be the first day that disconnect is eligible at that point in time. So there's multiple steps that happen in between that process related to notices and outreach and other opportunities in connections with the customer during that time, but that's from the first day of the bill to the first disconnect window. And this is all spelled out in the statewide rule, so it's not GMP specific process.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: It's what the rule that read out 300 outlines in this space.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: I'd rather break that down. Eight days after the bill is due, a disconnect notice could go out.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Unnoticed. Well, so the bill was due, yeah, on day

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: 20 Day 35, because eight days later, a disconnect notice could go out. And fifteen days after that, a person could be disconnected.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: There would be notice that they were actually in the disconnect window before the disconnection happens.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So just a little clarification of an example. So January's bill and January 31 is due when?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: January's bill, it were on January 1 that was issued, it'd

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: be due January 27, so twenty seven days after it was And

[Unidentified Committee Member]: then the first disconnect notice goes out? I didn't hear her.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: The first notice that, yes, past due would go out any time after

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: the date '30 into the date '35 range. Okay.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: February. Yep.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Alright. So they're still they're still consuming power for February. Mhmm. And the disconnect for January actually doesn't occur until March. Correct? Correct.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: And I just wanna clarify, though. You use January as an example. There's different rules related to the winter time period. The date approximation is correct from following that through, but there are different notification and requirements and limitations on disconnections during the winter months. Turning quickly to our energy assistance program, which like I had mentioned, I know you have heard a little bit about when I've come in and certainly when other folks have discussed this as well. We have been offering this program since about 2012. It's a 25% monthly discount on our customer bills if you are an eligible customer and the eligibility is 185% of the federal poverty level. And I just wanna clarify, that is the Title 30 definition for low income rate eligibility. So I understand and totally appreciate having to put my AHS hat on from before where I used to work. The variety of different income thresholds for different programs. Right? It's a pretty wide range in terms of Vermont offerings. But this program entitled 30 related to low income rates is specifically defined as a 185% of the FPL. We work with the Department for Children and Families to do the income verification and that can happen at one of two times. Either a customer finds our application for the program on our website or through a which what often happens is that they're on a call with our call center team and our call center team member will recommend that they apply for this program. And so, they provide them with the application and that gets shared with the Department for Children and Families. And then they do the income verification, let us know if they qualify or not. If they do, it's automatically applied to their next billing statement. The alternative way that folks can get onto the program is if they're also applying for LIHEAP fuel assistance. And if they are and they are a GMP customer, DCF notifies us that they are in a new eligible customer and they are automatically enrolled in our EAP. They don't have to do a separate form. I know there's been some questions about which programs that can be applied for and the reason why it is why HEAP and the fuel assistance specifically is that other programs like Three Squares Vermont, for example, and a couple of the other ones have slightly different definitions around how you define a household or how you define income. LIHEAP is the correct one that can be used as a proxy for this program as well. Another recent update to our program that we made, which we had petitioned the PUC for, the department said yes, we think this is the right approach and then the PUC issued an order approving this, is that we are now able to offer up to two arrearage forgiveness opportunities. Before, it used to be that you could, if you had a balance at the time of enrollment, you could have that balance forgiven, but we've now changed it so that while you're enrolled on the program, you can have up to two chances to have like a past due forgiven. And that really allows us the flexibility to work with customers who are on the program to provide them with that assistance at a time that makes the most sense for them and avoids disconnection and other things as well. If we're able to say, hey, you have a past due balance, you haven't used both of your forgiveness opportunities, and we're gonna apply that now to kind of set you off on a clean slate. And that has been really, really helpful now that that's in effect for us to work with these customers and and make that happen too. The overall program cost is about $6,000,000, which is paid for by all GMP customers. So if you're a GMP customer, you'll see that line item on your bill of a dollar 50 per month for residential, $3 for commercial customers, and the higher number for our industrial customers. And those were just recently updated a couple years ago

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: as well. Can I ask Yeah? The

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Career. Mhmm. Is that lifetime or per year? It is up to two years lifetime. Up to two times. Up to two times lifetime while folks are on the program.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: And and and sorry. I is this the ACRE program that you're talking about?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: No. This is our GMP specific Energy Assistance Program, our EAP. Okay. I have another question. Go ahead. Go. I

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: wanted to ask about the 8,000 disconnects that you have each year, and how many of those, you said that includes people who repeat them. Yeah. Proportion of those roughly are repeat customers that are getting disconnected? Do you have a sense?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: I don't have it in front of me, but I'm happy to follow-up on that. And I also wanna say that the the vast majority of them are not obviously, we don't have income information for all of our customers nor do we want to be in the business of knowing customer income information. We obviously have our EAP program, so we know that we can you know, we have that population. And the folks that are getting disconnected, that's across all customer classes. Then so it's not just it's not only Yeah. Exactly. Yep. Yep.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Yep. But that will get to the doctor. Yep.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. We can pull it through through that. Oh, sorry.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: That's okay. We do have two other witnesses. So Yeah. I don't wanna cough in this, but

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Pardon? Okay. So where is enrollment now in your

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Our current number is just over 10,000 currently enrolled customers.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: And would you be able to give us just, like, a little history, like, how has it changed over time?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: For sure. I mean, it's definitely been you know, there's been some changes in the program, so it's a little hard to compare it from prior to our implementation of going to a 185% of PL. It used to be a 150% of PL. And but, yeah, I can I can follow-up with that?

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Great. Oh, and one last question. How is this information shared with the PUC?

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Our EAP information? We file an annual report with the PUC on the fund balance, total customers enrolled, any kind of additional information about outreach, and how we've been sharing that program. And so that is an annual report due, I wanna say, March. Does it the disconnection info? No. Our disconnection information is shared, I wanna say it's monthly, with the PUC. We file a disconnection report every month. Yep.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: As we swap out seats, does it make sense to everybody in the room that the correct updated rule would be October 2024? Yes. Does that sound right? Okay. I wanna make sure folks have the right copy. I think an earlier witness gave us some of the rules from o six. That's what wound up printed out for

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: So we're gonna That's We're not doing that. That's burial. So I just I just wanna make sure everybody's looking at the

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: right copy, and I'll make sure that that gets taken down. And it's under Maria in legal documents that you can find the correct rules in case anybody else makes the same mistake I did. Okay? On the goat.

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: Hello. Hi. Good afternoon. Good bye. For the record, Andrea Cohen with Mon Electric Cooperative, and I'm here to speak about H753. And I don't know what the time, you know, how deep you want to go, but I have a lot of information to share, so happy to come back another time. Very close to my daily life, The member service team reports directly into me when I'm in Johnson in the office. I sit right in the middle of the team. I hear the conversations every day. And I have to say I appreciate that the intentions here are really well intended in terms of helping people keep their lights on and stay safe and well. And I also know that this is one component of a very big issue for households. Their electric bill is usually the last thing that is at the end of their challenges, frankly. You were talking about how the sequence of the process and unlike other essential services like food, housing, medicine, you actually use the product and pay later. So by the time we're actually in this kind of process trying to collect, the product's already been used and we're trying to catch back up and things continue to mount. The problems get only harder as more time passes. So I'll run through my slides, I'll share some information. Please stop me, Chair James, if there's something

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: I actually think if it's okay with the committee, we'll poll questions and make sure we give you time to get through your slides.

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: And I talk fast. Tell me if I need to slow down. But a little bit of the details. So as you just discussed, members are billed monthly for the past usage. They get the bill and then they have thirty days to pay it. If they don't pay it, in five five days go by, they get what we call a disconnection notice. Actually, it's not just a bad thing. What that notice contains is all kinds of resources, information, phone numbers. It's actually our first point of really being able to help people get assistance. And it's kind of intended that way. It's intended to say, Hey, heads up, you're behind. Call us. Work out a payment arrangement. Call community action. Here's all the phone numbers. And we really hope that people, some people wait to get the notice to start engaging with us. In some ways it's too bad to have to get it, but it's a wake up for some people and they do get in touch and that's great. We send about 4,000 notices out a month. That's about 10% of all preferred accounts get disconnect notice. The good news is a lot of people pay at that point. Either they'll call us, they'll make a payment, they'll call us, they say I need more time, we work out a payment arrangement. We have about eight fifty payment arrangements every month that our team is managing, where we set something up for folks to say, can you pay half now? When do you get your check? Okay, on the fifteenth, we'll put it in the system. We'll expect to get $200 then. We kind of really work it and we work with them to get to success. The percentage of folks that actually get disconnected after having gotten a notice is less than three percent. So for us, it's just under 100 on average a month that actually will get a disconnection. The good news, like Candice was saying for GMP, ninety percent of those that get reconnected, it's within a day. What that says to us is it's kind of too bad they didn't get help sooner because if they're managing to get some payments going in a day, maybe it could have been two days earlier and they could have avoided the disconnection. But sometimes it's like somebody gets home and they go, well, I guess they really meant it. My lights I'm are gonna call and make a payment. So that's the good news. A lot of them get reconnected. Some don't, and we don't always know what happened. It might, like I said, be in the end of like, Wow, we've been trying to make this household situation work. I'm behind on my bills, my power got turned up. Let me change my life situation, and they'll either go get help or they'll change their living situation, or it might be. So we don't always know what happens after that. So here's the the monthly average by year as discussed before COVID. We're back to where we were before COVID. You see during COVID 2020, 2021, we had hardly any disconnections. Those were on the end months, and then we're kind of back to where we were. The arrearages, which is very important for our co op because if you don't pay your bill, your neighbor's paying more, we know how that works, right? So you could see during COVID years, much higher end of the year arrearages. Now, the past few years, we've been pretty stable with we've kind of gone to another, our usual business as usual kind of situation. We look at this really close because the money, every little bit matters in terms of what goes into our rates. If we have to go collect or we're not getting paid, we have to cover those costs somehow. It's a closed system. So we track this. We don't have to spend too much time on this, but you could see the blue line was we were still recovering from the COVID years and now we're kind of back to the state. The reason why this matters and we don't just say, well, it doesn't matter if people pay, Like I said, it's because somebody else has to pay more. Our member demographics, you'll hear me talk about this a lot. We have a very old and low income membership. See, the 65 and over 57% of our members are on fixed incomes. And this is where I get a little, because we talk to people every day, people make hard choices and older folks will call and we know they're not doing other things so that they can pay their electric bill. So, we work really hard to keep those bills as low as possible. We don't want them having to pay a penny more than they need to because they are making choices, maybe not to get food or medicine. So we really respect that and value that, and so that really motivates us. You'll see me bring this slide in a lot. Our towns have some of the highest energy burden in the state. Every little bit really matters. So, we want to collect money from people who owe us money. We will try. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not going to work with them. Let me go to this one first. This is our team. We are local. We live in these communities. These people are our neighbors, our friends, our family members. Our member service team talks to certain people every month, and they're literally saying, I'll get you another $20 Friday. They are really working with people who are struggling and they will do everything. And I will hear people get off the phone and turn to the other member service rep and say, Joe just got out the hospital. We know his wife died three months ago. He's really hurting. They will literally take a collection off and pay his bill. Like, this is our community. This is where we do not like disconnecting people. This happens frequently. They will put together a gift basket and deliver it to somebody who they know. So when we talk about regulating more, I don't think more regulation are going to help us help these people. We need to help these people by keeping bills low and directing them to assistance and support that's there for them. I'll just mention high heat since I know that's in the bill. A few years back, we all know the summers are getting hotter and DPS started calling and saying, Hey, it's going be a really hot day. Maybe you shouldn't disconnect. People were like, You know, you're right. That's not a good day. So we started just being reactive, I think Carol Flynn spoke about the utilities are all being very responsive when we call. We decided instead of waiting for the call, let's be a little more proactive. So we have our own procedure about when we see that the National Weather Service has put a high heat advisory out in one of our regions, we will proactively not wait for the phone call and implement hold on any disconnects during that time. Reducing disconnections in the proposed build, and appreciate the attention again, having a metric about reducing disconnections. We are very motivated to reduce disconnections. We couldn't ever come up with what we think would be the right metric to put into something. I think it's aspirational. I think it's appropriate to ask us how we're working on this. I would recommend against putting some kind of SQRP metric if you want us to put it in our IRP and say, How are you working for this? What are you doing? Yeah, and challenge us and work with us, but I don't think it's appropriate for, like, a single metric about disconnections when it really I don't know what we would how we could even come up with the right number there without having unintended consequences. Just I'll go fast because we're running out of time. Every year we do an annual member survey. Low cost energy is the most important thing to our members every year consistently. This is the last few years. Not to dig on renewables, we're committed to 100% renewable, but the least cost is so important because our members are just begging us, keep the rates down, please, please, please. This is the most important thing. We think we could do both. We could do clean, reliable energy in the lowest cost way, and that's what we work on. Again, another question on member survey has to do with what makes people satisfied with their utility, what's your priority, and again, electric cost is the most important thing to our members. Just as you're considering this bill, I was reminded the energy action report, their recent annual progress report. The cost of electricity is significant for folks, but when you compare it to other heating costs or driving your car costs, this isn't like we don't feel like we're the biggest problem, frankly. So, we're gonna focus on things. Let's focus on some of those, and of course, healthcare and housing and all those other things. I also am reminded of PUC just in December came out with their cost stabilization, and I just pulled a quote out of there because they referenced the ACRE program. They said, You want to help low income folks? Let's do more of that kind of thing. And we are very committed to our ACRE program. We've just launched our phase two. We think this is a fantastic program. Of course, it requires money. But we have enrolled over 400 folks in this program. Essentially, they income qualify, they get a $45 a month bill credit every month for five years. That's $2,700 in their pocket, and it's not cost shifting to other members. So we feel really good about, you know, we can help people without having an upward pressure on rates. We're enrolling folks in phase two. If you know people in VEC service territory that need a hand, now is a great time for them to get in touch. And when people call us to do payment arrangements and they understand your challenge, we encourage them. It's another tool we can offer them to apply for that program. It's a very simple process. And we will fill out the form for them on the phone. We do that all the time. So just by closing, by saying we look forward to your partnership and really trying to address these problems together. Moving forward, our vision is lighting the path to affordable clean energy together, and we consider you a partner in that. So when we come in and we tell you honestly how we feel about things, it's within that spirit, and we know you're interested in getting the real information, so we'll just keep doing that.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Thank you. You.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That is your grant money. That's in the general funds?

[Andrea Cohen (Vermont Electric Cooperative)]: SPAPA money originally, do you remember? And then you did it in the budget. Somehow it came into the budget and then you allocated it to these programs. And those ends at the end of this year. You know, we have to allocate all the money by the end of this year, but the folks that get enrolled, it'll last for five years.

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: Which is great. Great. Thank you.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: Lewis. Lewis. I feel bad.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Badly. I feel badly. Why don't

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: you hop on up? Great.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: We do have floor at 03:30. I'm really sorry. No rush. Okay.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: We'll do it. We'll get through. We can get through. Okay.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: Andrea, can you there you go.

[Rep. Christopher Howland (Member)]: Alright. I

[Rep. Richard Bailey (Member)]: will move through this pretty quickly, and not a lot of detail, and then try to get a few questions in as well. But please stop me if you have questions on these slides as I go. For the record, Lewis Porter, general manager, Washington Electric Co op. I would say everything that Andrea just said goes for us. We are another cooperative.

[Lewis Porter (General Manager, Washington Electric Cooperative)]: We operate in a very similar manner. We're smaller. But like Andrea's folks, our member services folks know the people that they're disconnecting very well. And as Andrea says, many of them are people who we talk to frequently, and we recognize the problems that being disconnected causes for them. And and like Andrea, I sit off the member services part of our operation, And so I hear these same conversations in person or on the telephone. And it's it's tough. However, thing I would leave the most important thing I would leave for you today is somebody pays the cost of providing electrical service. We are not we are a nonprofit. We're highly regulated, perhaps more regulated than any co ops in the the country. And so our books are are open and transparent and managed by the PUC and other regulatory bodies. And if somebody doesn't pay their electric bill, somebody else pays it instead. So here is what happens when there is limitations on disconnects. Here are Washington Electric's accounts receivable write offs by year, and there was a disconnect moratorium from October to July '1, and you can see the impact on arrearages that we saw there. You've heard a lot about this disconnection process, so I won't go into this except to say in a highly regulated business, this is an extremely highly regulated part of it. And appropriately, we provide an essential service. We have the benefit of having a regulated franchise territory that nobody else can serve people in. So it's appropriate that it's highly regulated, but it is extremely, tightly regulated and overseen. And it's also managed in a way that hasn't been mentioned, which is, I am hired and fired, and our board our policies and procedures are set by an elected board. And so the members can rise up and elect board members who will do it differently and have in the past. I won't go through each of these, but these are the programs that we do for income qualified members. The difference between these programs and disconnects is these are verified to that members who apply to them are are income qualified, are low income members or meet the criteria. And just wanna say thanks to Vermont Electric Co op. We participate in the ACRE program through their efforts, so they do most of the work and our members get a lot of the benefit. But we are gonna have about two twenty WEC members in both phases of ACRE. We also have tier three, our rewire program, fuel switch, our ESAP program, which is a battery storage and load management program, has an income qualified section to it. Won't go through all these at this point, but just to say we do a lot. In his budget address, the the governor said that disconnection rates have increased 31% since 2022, and I'm sure he's right about that statewide. This is our disconnects during that time period. But looking at that short time period doesn't really tell you the full story. This is our disconnects by year going back a lot longer. During that period of COVID, partially voluntarily by the utilities and partly by moratorium, we didn't disconnect people. So both the arrearages went up and the disconnects went down. And that was appropriate. We exist in a regulated system. We ought to have some We ought to provide some cushion to events like the pandemic. But I just wanted to provide you with this longer term context. We are not seeing a unusual number of disconnects over the long term. We hate doing disconnects, both personally, because we have to disconnect electricity to our neighbors who are suffering consequences from that, but also as an organization, that's one more person not paying the bill. But we if we don't disconnect, people don't pay. And there is a small but real number of people who play the winter disconnect periods, the doctor's notes, the other ways of delaying disconnects, and they play that sys I will say that's, I think, a very small minority of the people who get disconnected. But we work with a lot of people, and we see them come through the system. Somebody asked, are you having do have repeat disconnect people? People are repeated. It's a little bit of a hard answer to give you because often what will happen is people will register their accountant and and then somebody else's name who lives at the house and a family member's name and a and somebody else's name. So it's a little bit hard to say. I will say our member services folks know who is in financial trouble in our in our territory, and they do just get there are people who get disconnected regularly. However, I think delaying those good disconnects as opposed to other programs like ACRE, weatherization, other programs like that, delaying those disconnects does not get those folks out of that hole. It just builds. I'll stop there. Give you a couple of minutes for questions anyway, and happy to come back.

[Rep. R. Scott Campbell (Vice Chair)]: Do you charge a Connect fee or something or a deposit or anything Yeah, like

[Lewis Porter (General Manager, Washington Electric Cooperative)]: we do all of that. We do a $20 fee to reconnect. That obviously doesn't cover the cost of going out to do it in person. We don't have a fee for remote disconnects. And, yes, we'll do payment arrangements, deposits for people who have had prior bad histories with us, other things. My member services chief just told me we do about 82 payment arrangements a month and about 23 of those are broken. So, you know, it's it's an ongoing process. We'll refer people to agencies that can help them. Emergencies, we'll work with people. Essentially, if you're paying down your balance, you're not gonna get distracted. If you are breaking multiple payment arrangements and we don't see that it's ever gonna result in your being able to pay the bill under the disconnect rules and over that time period that was mentioned earlier, we will discontinue it.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: So I apologize, Lewis. It was a previous slide, but I went kinda fast. That's good. Okay. I noticed that was, I think, 90% on the same day, I think is what I saw. We heard from GMP. It's in the eighties of a reconnect on the same day. Do you know? Yeah. So we have stopped doing

[Lewis Porter (General Manager, Washington Electric Cooperative)]: disconnects over the weekend except for emergency situations because the cost was so much higher, and there was very little disincentive to people not to disconnect and reconnect. It provided more incentives to people to re to pay the bill and to reconnect during the week. So I don't know the the number of same day. I expect it's similar to the other two, but we do not now do nonemergency reconnects over the weekend.

[Rep. Laura Sibilia (Ranking Member)]: What qualifies as an emergency? You know, it's it's

[Lewis Porter (General Manager, Washington Electric Cooperative)]: a little bit subjective, but the reality is if somebody calls us and they say, you know, my house is my pipes are gonna freeze. I can pay you, but my pipes are gonna freeze. I we had one recently where somebody was perfectly able to pay. They just there'd been a transfer of houses between two people. Well, you know, one president stopped renting, one other fell through the cracks. We did it. We did it during that. But you can imagine that $20 does not come close to covering the cost of of getting a a meter check or a or a line per person on call out into a truck into the place. And we felt like we needed to provide a little more disincentive than we were to people who are routinely getting disconnected and getting reconnected over the weekend.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: Gonna We're get in trouble. Louis, thank you so much

[Candice Morgan (Green Mountain Power)]: for your time. As a group

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Three hour call.

[Rep. Kathleen James (Chair)]: So much for being here. I apologize for the rush. We can go on by.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Three hour call out.