Scientific Irrigation Scheduling RTF Staff/CAT Discussion RTF SIS Subcommittee November 20, 2014

Discussion Items 2 1)Schedule 2)The role of yield in irrigation efficiency 3)Sample design

1) Schedule 3 11/17/14 (today) – SIS Subcommittee – BPA update status of research plan to subcommittee. – RTF staff/CAT update and check-in. 12/2/14 – RTF Research and Evaluation Subcommittee – Review research plans for feasibility, likelihood of statistically valid results, technical input where possible – Help get research plans “RTF ready” – OK if sample sizes, segmentation haven’t been determined yet But Subcommittee does review methodology for forecasting confidence/precision of results 12/11/14 – BPA sample design meeting – Define population, sample segmentation 12/16/14 – December RTF meeting. – BPA to present research plan, proposed provisional savings estimate. Full proposal to RTF to be determined.

2) Yield 4 BPA encouraged Council to consider SIS as an improvement to efficiency of production (kWh/bushel), rather than a net change in consumption on the grid. – Council legal and staff agreed – Water spreading not a concern under this paradigm – But now we need to consider changes in yield due to SIS, not just changes in water/energy

2) Yield (cont’d) 5 SIS practitioners have clarified that their objective is to prescribe “the minimum amount of water required to produce maximum yield.” – [SIS subcommittee please verify] – We’d like to use this definition in the Protocol This is good! – there are additional savings to count for any improvements to yield (relative to the population) that SIS provides. Yield is impractical to collect – [SIS subcommittee please verify] – Can the Subcommittee inform us on water/yield relationships to estimate yield changes based on water applied?

3) Sample Design 6 SIS Savings = [Water Requirement] X [Water_to_Energy_Conversion] X [Savings Percentage] X [Baseline Adjustment] [Water Requirement] and [Water_to_Energy_Conversion] are inputs to the Calculator for each site. [Savings Percentage] and [Baseline Adjustment] are products of the research. RTF Guidelines call for measure identifiers (i.e, separate applications) where savings are expected to be significantly (typically more than 10%) different. Sample segmentation should be done to inform this. E.g., – By region, to account for availability of SIS services – By crop type, to account for likelihood of using SIS in the population – [We’d like SIS Subcommittee input on what factors will lead to significantly different savings.]

3) Sample Design (cont’d) 7 Sample design likely won’t be ready for December RTF meeting, – RTF staff/CAT have requested target confidence/precision levels and rough segmentation to understand what level of precision to expect from the research – RTF staff/CAT have suggested large sample size (100’s to 1000’s) required for 90/10 or 90/20 confidence/precision