The California Standard Practice Manual: Economic Analysis of Demand Side Programs and Projects
Published: October 1, 2001
The California Standard Practice Manual establishes standard procedures for cost-effectiveness evaluations for utility-sponsored programs administered by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC). It is generally considered to be the authoritative source for defining cost-effectiveness criteria and is often referenced by many other states and utilities. Some settle on a particular test that is valued above others, while others use a combined assessment of many or even all of the tests.
The manual describes cost-effectiveness tests from five perspectives, including:
- the Participant Test
- the Ratepayer Impact Measure Test (RIM)
- the Total Resource Cost test (TRC)
- the Program Administrator Cost Test (PACT) and
- the Societal Cost Test (which is treated as a variation on the TRC test).
Note: This guide was first introduced in the 1980's and has been revised and updated several times, most recently in 2001. In 2007, the CPUC issued a correction memo to clarify an aspect of the TRC test.
