From February to November, 2008, AltaLink lead a cross-industry stakeholder session to review the current Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) Customer Contribution Policy. The participants identified industry concerns with the current policy and developed recommendations.

The key recommendations delivered to the AESO are listed below. More details can be found on the AESO web page http://www.aeso.ca/tariff/16722.html.

AESO Customer Contribution Policy key recommendations

· Adopt a set of guiding principles into the contribution policy.
· Enhance the definition of standard facilities and lead a stakeholder consultation to develop Planning Principles and Standards of Service.
· Incorporate a method of fairly allocating the costs associated with an early system rebuild.
· Use an inflation factor that is representative of the Alberta market place and incorporate a mechanism to adjust the contribution formula to account for regulatory lag.
· Align the timing of prepaid operation and maintenance costs, and apply prepaid operation and maintenance exclusively to facilities in excess of standard.
· Provide flexibility on the timing of contribution payments and provide choices for customers transitioning between tariffs.
· Provide the choice for the contribution payment to be a facilities charge rather than a balance sheet transaction.
· Provide new customers with both generation and load at the site, the opportunity to be “load first” in determination of their contribution payment.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the sessions. We are hopeful that the recommendations will be considered as the AESO designs its new contribution policy.

Joint Filings - AltaLink is working with the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) to enable combined filings of the AESO’s Need Identification Documents and AltaLink's Facilities Application. This coordination could potentially save two to four months of cycle time as facilities applications can be started in advance of the Need being filed, thus eliminating the sequential process. In addition, the Alberta Utiliities Commission (AUC) would review both documents in parallel and potentially render a quicker decision.

In-house Estimating - AltaLink has created a template to allow for quicker Order of Magnitude (OOM) estimates on greenfield projects. This process will allow for consistent estimating on these types of projects and quicker turnaround for the delivery of the estimate to the AESO. It is hoped that this will reduce OOM estimate cycle time by approximately two weeks for approximately 40 per cent of all projects.

Modular Estimates - A new initiative was kicked off in September 2008 which we believe will result in a step change in how we deliver estimates. We are developing a modular scoping process that will standardize approach from order of magnitude through to PPS estimates and will create efficiency gains throughout the organization. Our goal is to take weeks off the cycle time at both the OOM and PPS level. Ultimately, we hope to turn estimates around within weeks.

Directly to PPS (+20/-10%) level estimating - AltaLink is working to mitigate front-end timelines on projects by moving certain projects directly to the PPS level estimate. Projects that may be eligible for this process include projects (as agreed to by the AESO) that have been identified as one alternative projects for build. Types of projects that would fall into this category typically consist of upgrades to an existing substation, radial lines with minimal landowner or siting impacts and those that are not contingent on area reinforcements as identified by the AESO. This process could potentially shave four to six weeks off a project timeline.