General. Integrated resource planning is a planning process for new energy resources that evaluates the full range of alternatives, including new generating capacity, power purchases, energy conservation and efficiency, cogeneration and district heating and cooling applications, and renewable energy resources, to provide adequate and reliable service to a customer's electric consumers. An IRP supports customer-developed goals and schedules. The plan must take into account necessary features for system operation, such as diversity, reliability, dispatchability, and other risk factors; must take into account the ability to verify energy savings achieved through energy efficiency and the projected durability of such savings measured over time; and must treat demand and supply resources on a consistent and integrated basis.

IRP criteria. IRPs must consider electrical energy resource needs and may consider, at the customer's option, water, natural gas, and other energy resources. Each IRP submitted to Western must include:

Identification of resource options. Identification and comparison of resource options is an assessment and comparison of existing and future supply-and demand-side resource options available to a customer based upon its size, type, resource needs, geographic area, and competitive situation. Resource options evaluated by the specific customer must be identified. The options evaluated should relate to the resource situation unique to each Western customer as determined by profile data (such as service area, geographical characteristics, customer mix, historical loads, projected growth, existing system data, rates, and financial information) and load forecasts. Specific details of the customer's resource comparison need not be provided in the IRP itself. They must, however, be made available to Western upon request.

Supply-side options include, but are not limited to, purchased power contracts and conventional and renewable generation options.

Demand-side options alter the customer's use pattern to provide for an improved combination of energy services to the customer and the ultimate consumer.

Considerations that may be used to develop potential options include cost, market potential, consumer preferences, environmental impacts, demand or energy impacts, implementation issues, revenue impacts, and commercial availability.

The IRP discussion of resource options must describe the options chosen by the customer, clearly demonstrating that decisions were based on a reasonable analysis of the options. The IRP may strike a balance among the applicable resource evaluation factors.

Action plan. IRPs must include an action plan describing specific actions the customer will take to implement its IRP.

The IRP must state the time period that the action plan covers, and the action plan must be updated and resubmitted to Western when this time period expires. The customer may submit a revised action plan with the annual IRP progress report discussed in § 905.14.

For those customers not experiencing or anticipating load growth, the action plan requirement for the IRP may be satisfied by a discussion of current actions and procedures in place to periodically reevaluate the possible future need for new resources. The action plan must include a summary of:

Actions the customer expects to take in accomplishing the goals identified in the IRP;

Milestones to evaluate accomplishment of those actions during implementation; and

Estimated energy and capacity benefits for each action planned.

Environmental effects. To the extent practical, the customer must minimize adverse environmental effects of new resource acquisitions and document these efforts in the IRP. Customers are neither precluded from nor required to include a quantitative analysis of environmental externalities as part of the IRP process. IRPs must include a qualitative analysis of environmental effects in summary format.

Public participation. The customer must provide ample opportunity for full public participation in preparing and developing an IRP (or any IRP revision or amendment). The IRP must include a brief description of public involvement activities, including how the customer gathered information from the public, identified public concerns, shared information with the public, and responded to public comments. Customers must make additional documentation identifying or supporting the full public process available to Western upon request.

As part of the public participation process for an MBA, the governing body of an MBA must approve the IRP in accordance with the MBA's by-laws, confirming that all requirements have been met. To indicate approval in the case of an individual IRP submitted by an entity with a board of directors or city council, a responsible official must sign the IRP submitted to Western or the customer must document passage of an approval resolution by the appropriate governing body included or referred to in the IRP.

For Western customers that do not purchase electricity for resale, such as some State, Tribal, and Federal agencies, the customer can satisfy the public participation requirement by having a top management official with resource acquisition responsibility review and concur on the IRP. The customer must note this concurrence in the IRP.

Load forecasting. An IRP must include a statement that the customer conducted load forecasting. Load forecasting should include data that reflects the size, type, resource conditions, and demographic nature of the customer using an accepted load forecasting method, including but not limited to the time series, end-use, and econometric methods. The customer must make the load forecasting data available to Western upon request.

Measurement strategies. The IRP must include a brief description of measurement strategies for options identified in the IRP to determine whether the IRP's objectives are being met. These validation methods must include identification of the baseline from which a customer will measure the benefits of its IRP implementation. A reasonable balance may be struck between the cost of data collection and the benefits resulting from obtaining exact information. Customers must make performance validation and evaluation data available to Western upon request.

IRP criteria for certain customers not qualifying for “small customer” status. Customers with limited economic, managerial, and resource capability and total annual sales and usage of 25 gigawatthours (GWh) or less who are members of joint-action agencies and generation and transmission cooperatives with power supply responsibility are eligible for the criteria specified in paragraphs (c)(1) and (c)(2) of this section.

Each IRP submitted by a customer under paragraph (c) of this section must:

Consider all reasonable opportunities to meet future energy service requirements using DSM techniques, renewable energy resources, and other programs; and

Minimize, to the extent practical, adverse environmental effects.

Each IRP submitted by a customer under paragraph (c) of this section must include, in summary form:

Customer name, address, phone number, email and Website if applicable, and contact person;

Customer type;

Current energy and demand profiles, and data on total annual energy sales and usage for the past 5 years, which Western will use to verify that customers qualify for these criteria;

Future energy services projections;

How items in paragraphs (c)(1)(i) and (c)(1)(ii) of this section were considered; and

Actions to be implemented over the customer's planning timeframe.