PUC Annual Report–Fiscal Year 2011-12 - Public Utilities Commission

Public Utilities Commission Annual Report 2011-12
State of Hawaii Page 38
programs.” 28 The initiatives and programs proposed focused on clean energy,
increasing the effectiveness of their generating units, asset management to begin
the task of dealing with aging infrastructure, and efforts to maintain larger fuel
inventories. In addition to the rate increase, HECO requested Commission
approval of a purchased power adjustment clause to recover non-energy
purchased power agreement costs, a deferred software cost recover provision, a
change to the Energy Cost Adjustment Clause (“ECAC”), and an increase in the
fee for returned checks or payments.
On July 22, 2011, the Commission filed an Interim Decision and Order that
approved an increase in revenues of $53,200,000, or approximately 3.1 percent
over revenues at current effective rates. The Commission later revised the
approved increase in revenues in three separate orders; the final interim increase
over revenues of $58,234,000 can be found in an order filed on March 20, 2012.
The Commission approved an increase of 3.39 percent over revenues at current
effective rates in its June 29, 2012 decision and order.
• MECO 2010 Test Year Rate Increase Request—Docket No. 2009-0163
In September 2009, MECO filed its application, seeking an increase in
revenues of $28,190,300 (approximately 9.7 percent), and a rate of return of
8.57 percent. MECO also proposed to establish: (1) a purchased power
adjustment clause/surcharge to recover non-energy purchased power agreement
costs by effectively transferring the recovery of purchased power costs from base
rates to the new surcharge that will be adjusted monthly and reconciled on a
quarterly basis; and (2) a revenue balancing account for a revenue decoupling
mechanism that will remove the linkage between electric revenues and sales, if
such a revenue balancing account is not otherwise approved by the Commission
in its separated revenue decoupling investigative proceeding (Docket
No. 2008-0274).
In July 2010, the Commission approved an interim increase in revenues of
$10,296,200, or approximately 3.3 percent over revenues at current effective
rates, based on total revenue requirement of $323,885,100 (consolidated
operations basis). Thereafter, in January 2011, the Commission approved an
adjustment to the interim increase in revenues, which resulted in a decrease in
the amount of the interim increase in revenues previously approved by the
Commission, from $10,296,200 to $8,513,000, i.e., by $1,783,200.
In an order on May 2, 2012, the Commission approved an increase in
revenues of approximately 1.5 percent over revenues which is lower than the
interim increase, resulting in a slight reduction in MECO’s rates; approved the
proposed tariff sheets for MECO’s ECAC; and approved the proposed tariff
sheets to implement decoupling and the purchased power adjustment clause.
This docket was closed on May 22, 2012.
28 Hawaiian Electric Company Inc. Application Verification and certificate of
service. Filed July 30, 2010, page 3.