Agency: Office of Energy Development

Function

The Office of Energy Development (OED)'s mission is to provide leadership in the balanced development of Utah's abundant energy resources through public and private partnerships for economic prosperity, energy independence, and a reliable, affordable energy supply. The office focuses on production, energy delivery and efficient utilization of Utah's energy resources:

• Conventional Energy: areas include fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas, crude oil and heavy oil and derivatives.
• Unconventional Energy: areas include oil shale and oil sands; and nuclear energy.
• Energy Efficiency: areas include residential, commercial, and the industrial sectors.
• Renewable Energy: areas include solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and hydroelectric resources.
• Energy Infrastructure: areas include electricity transmission fuel pipelines and delivery stations.

The vision for OED is to be the primary resource for advancing energy development in Utah. OED does this through five strategic objectives: 1) creating and implementing policy for the Governor, Legislature and state, 2) providing industry assistance, 3) building relationships, 4) seeking funding opportunities and, 5) supporting energy education.

OED's goals are aligned with the Governor's "Utah Energy Initiative," a ten-year strategic energy plan as well as the Governor's 2008 Utah Energy Policy.

H.B. 137 (2012 GS), Energy Changes: The Infrastructure Authority was created in the 2012 General Session with the aim of helping to facilitate any energy delivery projects that help to advance responsible energy development in the state. To that end, the Authority Board may authorize tax-free bonds to support the development of any transmission line or pipeline that meets broad criteria related to responsible energy development and rural economic development. OED will staff the Authority's Board, convening meetings, presenting and vetting projects, and coordinating with bond counsel on the issuance of bonds per the Board's approval.

S.B. 65 (2012 GS), Alternative Energy Development Tax Incentives: The AEDI is a tax credit designed to advance the development of large scale unconventional energy (oil shale, oil sands and nuclear) and renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biomass) projects. The post-performance credit will be equivalent to 75% of all newly generated state revenues, and will last for a period of 20 years, providing a long term incentive that will bolster two sectors that will be of vital importance to Utah in the coming years. OED will manage the AEDI, receiving and reviewing applications, authorizing tax credits, and managing the incentive relationship throughout the twenty year credit period.

Background

H.B. 475 (2011 GS), State Energy Amendments: On the final day of the 2011 General Session, the Legislature passed H.B. 475 which created a new Office of Energy Development (OED). The bill intended to centralize energy-related functions and budgets from other areas of state government.

Statutory Authority

The Utah Office of Energy Development is governed by the Code, Title of the Utah Code:

• UCA 19-63M-4-401 created the Office of Energy Development.
• UCA 63M-4-301 is the state's energy policy.
• UCA 59-7-614.7 defines the nonrefundable alternative energy development tax credit from corporate franchise and income taxes.
• UCA 59-10-1029 defines the nonrefundable alternative energy development tax credit from the Individual Income Tax Act.

Performance

The Office of Energy Development became an office this past year, therefore performance measures only exist for one year.

Private investment leveraged: This measure captures any private investments on energy efficiency improvements, distributed generation facilities, or utility scale generation facilities that was leveraged by OED funds (by tax incentives, rebates, loans or other funding programs). OED tracks total costs of all supported projects, and targets a 4:1 leverage goal for every dollar it invests in the community. The leverage ratio for FY 2012 seems outsized due to the remaining federal stimulus dollars still flowing through OED to a variety of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

• Target: $47,048,076.00
• Actual: $72,940,005.00

Tax incentives authorized: In OED's first year, this measure only captured tax incentives authorized through the Renewable Energy Systems Tax Credit (RESTC). This incentive included investment tax credits for households and businesses and production tax credits for large scale renewable energy projects. All tax credits that the office awards are tracked, and this measure is a summary of those credit amounts. The target is based on historical data suggesting the dollar amount of credits authorized grows at a rate of 60% each year. The credits authorized in FY 2012 exceeded the growth curve due to federal stimulus-based rebates offered by OED. Those rebates are no longer in effect. In FY 2012, the RESTC was the only active tax incentive managed by the office. In FY 2013 the office will authorize the first credits under the new Alternative Energy Development Incentive.

• Target: $1,966,080.00
• Actual: $4,060,534.00

Participants at hosted educational events: This measure calculates the documented participation at all energy education events hosted by OED, including everything from a building codes training aimed at energy efficiency education, to the Utah Governor's Energy Development Summit. This measure is valuable to OED since part of their mission is to education Utahns about energy development in the state. The high target and actual associated with this metric in FY 2012 can in part be associated with the federal stimulus funding still flowing through OED. Next year's target will be 3,000.

Note: This measure is for events hosted and programmed by OED, the number would be roughly three times larger if it also captured events supported by OED.

• Target: 5,500 participants
• Actual: 6,524 participants

Funding Detail

For more detail about a particular source of finance or organizational unit, click a linked entry in the left column of the table(s) below.

Table 1: Operating and Capital Budget Including Expendable Funds and Accounts