PUC approves 11 GPA demand‑side management initiatives, citing $3M annual DSM budget

The Guam Public Utilities Commission voted to approve 11 additional demand‑side management (DSM) initiatives proposed by the Guam Power Authority, the commission announced after discussion at its March 26 meeting.

Fred (ALJ) told commissioners that the DSM program has been in place since about 2013–2014 and that GPA’s petition lists 11 new initiatives designed to modernize the program, including an electric vehicle managed‑charging pilot, a 100‑unit hot‑water controller pilot, home area network services, a new online home energy assessment platform, commercial LED rebate expansion and automation, PV forecasting and generation‑planning software, and updated audit tools. "GPA indicates that for these additional initiatives, there will be no increase in the budget. It will remain the same at 3,000,000 annual DSM budget," Fred said.

Fred reported the account history and funding context: a UFS consultant review dated Feb. 24, 2024, showed a prior EnergySense balance of about $5.3 million; GPA identified an overcollection of $2,421,399 between June 2020 and July 2023 and has a current DSM balance of about $1.8 million. He said GPA had previously petitioned to reduce the DSM component of the LEAC to zero and that any future reactivation of a LEAC charge to fund DSM would require prior PUC approval and the reporting/true‑up steps ordered in earlier dockets.

Commissioners and staff questioned program scale and operations during a public exchange. Commission members heard that an online application transformation improved processing times (about 47% of conforming applications from submission to check cut within 30 days) and that GPA and its consultant estimated past program results as roughly $6 million in total rebates producing about $26 million in direct customer energy savings and a capacity deferral of roughly 10.1 megawatts.

Staff described implementation details for pilots and customer outreach: GPA has selected Flow EV as a contractor for the EV managed‑charging pilot, plans to use Level‑2 chargers in the pilot, will deploy home area network devices that link to advanced metering to give customers near‑real‑time data, and will expand online auditing tools and rebate automation to simplify participation. Communications manager Joyce Tayano was identified as leading outreach and marketing for DSM offerings.

A motion to approve GPA docket 2606 was made and seconded; the commission voted in favor and the motion passed.

Next steps identified by Fred include requiring GPA to comply with reporting requirements in existing LEAC orders, to provide detailed true‑up reporting in future LEAC proceedings, and to obtain prior PUC approval before activating any new LEAC charge to fund DSM measures.