APPA’s In-house Training Program

Invest in your workforce today…Reap the benefits tomorrow

Public power utilities will face many challenges in the years to come, including changes in the electric utility industry and customer expectations, as well as the retirement of many long-term staff members. All of this will require public power systems to plan for the future and to look at the skills that their utility’s employees need.

APPA has the resources to help prepare your utility for the challenges ahead. Bringing APPA’s educational programs to your utility is a cost-effective way to develop competencies throughout your organization—from the board to the front-line staff. You’ll find that APPA’s training programs are tailored to the specific needs of public power systems.

Benefits of APPA’s In-house Training Program

• Customized Programming Cost Savings
• Less Time Away From the Office
• Top Instructors Who Know Public Power
• Continuing Education Units (CEUs), Professional Development Hours (PDHs) or Continuing Professional Education (CPEs) credits
• Team Participation

Course Offerings

Listed below are some of APPA’s most popular courses. We are also happy to work with you to develop courses that you may need in other subject areas.

Accounting:

• Accounting Utility Public
  This course highlights the development of a utility accounting system that is compatible with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) guidelines.  It examines accounting theory, the role of accounting in public utilities, FERC accounting procedures, uniform systems of accounts, and utility accounting subsystems.
• Advanced Public Utility Accounting
  Most of the crucial decisions that electric utilities make require the extensive use of accounting information. It is essential that employees with accounting responsibilities have a solid understanding of public utility accounting concepts. With APPA’s Public Utility Accounting course (or equivalent) as a prerequisite, this course examines some of the more complicated aspects of accounting theory and practice.

Board Members & Policymakers:

• Policymakers Workshop
  This course introduces elected and appointed public power board and city council members to the responsibilities and processes of electric utility governance and policy setting. It examines political, market, and operational forces affecting electric utilities and discusses governance trends and what boards and councils must do to meet their fiduciary responsibilities.
• Governance and Legal Accountability for Municipal Utilities
  Today, pressures are ever-mounting relative to increasing the accountability of effective governance, reporting, and accounting for all industries. Given the continued growth of market risks and complexities in the electric industry, increasing public pressure is being placed upon power utilities to implement business practices aimed at elevating their accountability for high ethical practices and tightened control systems. This course is designed to provide information on the requirements, guidance, and implementation recommendations relative to both governmental and AICPA standards established to address the increasing industry pressure for more effective organizational accountability. In addition, the course will address policy issues relative to the legal aspects of ethics, conflicts of interest, and other legal discussion topics.

Energy Efficiency

Business Energy Audits
This highly interactive and intensive course will prepare participants to become trusted advisors to their business customers by helping them manage their energy use and costs. Filled with time-tested energy management strategies, attendees will l earn about typical customer energy systems such as lighting, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, motors, controls, and related systems and how the building envelope affects energy use and costs. In addition, the significant impact that occupants have on energy use and costs will be examined. Participants will learn valuable energy management recommendations to give to customers that will help them manage their costs while helping the utility company manage its load shape.

Course Highlights

• Learn how to conduct a walk-through energy audit for customers
• Learn about typical customer energy systems, including lighting, heating, and ventilation
• Identify potential energy conservation measures (ECMs) that will save energy and costs
• Discover financial evaluation tools to determine the cost-effectiveness of potential ECMs

Life-Cycle Costing: Demonstrating the Financial Benefits of Energy Conservation and Demand-Side Management

Business executives make important decisions based on the financial benefits to their organizations. This course will provide you with the necessary information and practical tools to explain to customers how energy conservation and demand-side management measures impact their bottom line. The instructor will go beyond simple payback analysis of energy conservation measures and focus on sound financial comparisons of energy cost savings compared to the investment required to achieve those savings. He will teach you how to explain to customers in simple terms why an energy conservation measure, which may have a seemingly long payback period (e.g., 3-4 years), is in fact a good energy conservation investment that will return more than two or three times the initial investment.

Course Highlights

• Learn practical definitions of net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and savings-to-investment ratio (SIR) and how to calculate them for any energy conservation measure
• Learn how to explain NPV, IRR and SIR to customers so they will act on cost effective energy conservation measures
• Learn how to use LCC spreadsheets to quickly and accurately calculate NPV, IRR and SIR for potential energy conservation
• Measures (ECMs) to select the most cost effective ECMs.
• Receive a complimentary CD-ROM containing several LCC spreadsheets you can use to conduct LCC analyses for yourselves and you customers

Engineering & Operations:

• Constructing, Operating, and Maintaining Underground Distribution Systems
  In this course, participants will analyze typical policy and service guidelines to provide for consistent and specific service to their electric underground customers. They will learn planning and design techniques for underground distribution systems, discuss the pros and cons of the various designs, and be able to factor all of the elements affecting underground distribution systems (reliability, economics, environmental factors, etc.) into their planning, design, construction, and maintenance work upon returning to their utilities.
• Overhead Distribution Systems
  Overhead distribution continues to be the predominant method that electric utilities use to deliver electricity to end-use customers.  For as long as overhead distribution has been around, there are many engineers, designers, lineworkers, and technicians who have only a limited understanding of the planning, design, installation, and maintenance principles that drive today’s overhead distribution practices.  In a time of increasing concern for economics and service reliability, it is essential to gain a full understanding of these principles before attempting to change or improve current practices.  Even if your knowledge of overhead distribution is limited, this course will help prepare you to update your utility’s standards, make better design decisions, reduce construction costs, and enhance both safety and service reliability. 
• Distribution Basics
  This course covers the electrical aspects of distribution system planning, design, and operation. It emphasizes the knowledge and techniques needed to meet customer requirements for power quality and reliability while ensuring efficient use of capital, labor, and electrical energy.
• Electric Utility Basics
  This course will explore the fundamental nature of the electric utility industry and the infrastructure that makes it possible to deliver electrical energy on demand for a wide range of customer applications. Participants will learn about the generation, transmission, distribution, and utilization of electricity and how the highly integrated electric utility system will work under a re-regulated, more competitive business structure.

Finance:

• Basic Utility Cost-of-Service & Retail Rate Design
  This course teaches traditional electric utility industry approaches to cost-of-service and retail rate design using fully allocated cost methods. Participants will learn how to cost generation, transmission, and distribution services, as well as design rates for these services. They will learn what information is needed for unbundling electricity services and where and how to obtain it. They will then learn how to use this information to allocate costs and design bundled rates. Finally, participants will work through a practical, in-class case example to gain a deeper understanding of the political issues and realities that can come up when moving towards cost-based rates.
• Advanced Utility Cost-of-Service & Retail Rate Design
  This “hands on” course takes attendees through a traditional, fully-allocated cost-of-service exercise to obtain practical experience and knowledge of the issues faced during a cost-of-service study.  The course builds upon the concepts learned in APPA’s Basic Utility Cost-of-Service and Retail Rate Design course and focuses on developing unbundled cost-of-service studies.  The course discusses how to use an unbundled study to develop seasonal rates, economic development rates, outside city rates (rural rates), and rates at alternative service levels.
• Economic Costs and Their Application to Pricing Electric Utility Services
  "Demand-responsive pricing" is one of the current electric utility industry buzz words and suggests how utilities should cost and price electric services. But how does it differ from time-of-use rates, peak-load pricing, real-time pricing, or marginal cost pricing? How do all of these approaches differ from traditional methods for setting prices based on fully allocated cost calculations? And which ones are appropriate? This course provides answers to these important questions by providing the essential conceptual background needed to understand economic costs, i.e., the real costs of business decisions. The course will explain economic costs in detail, provide examples, and contrast economic costs with conventional industry approaches for determining costs. Primary course goals are to provide (1) a clear, sound conceptual understanding of economic costs and their importance in designing price and (2) the basic knowledge needed to critically assess the value of various costing and pricing approaches that are being touted today, as well as the relevance of prices based on traditional fully allocated costs.
• Financial Planning for Municipal Utilities
  Financial planning is critical to the current and future success of public power systems.  Policies, politics, and procedures sometimes inhibit proper financial planning.  In this highly interactive course, you will learn how to break this cycle while improving customer satisfaction and financial stability for your utility.  You will leave with models and examples on each topic and will participate in a mock board case study that will give you the opportunity to practice what you learn in the course.

Key Accounts:

• Implementing a Customer-Focused Key Accounts Program
  While the threat of deregulation has lessened in most states, the threat of competition for key account customers is still very real.  This threat can manifest itself in many ways, such as economic relocation, fuel switching, or distributed generation and inspire public power systems to develop plans and programs that provide individualized service to their commercial and industrial consumers.  This intensive course is designed for electric system personnel/account managers who are responsible for identifying and providing these services.  The contents of this course provide the basis for the key accounts business plan, which is an integral component of the APPA Key Accounts Certificate Program.
• Developing Your Key Accounts Representative
  Simply having a key accounts program will not ensure a utility’s success.  As retail customers become more sophisticated, utilities with key accounts programs must utilize trained professionals as account executives to gain and maintain competitive advantage.  Account management and customer relationship skills are vital for employees who are key accounts representatives.  This interactive course is designed for key account executives and front line employees who work with key accounts on a regular basis.  The culmination of the course is a template for a customer marketing plan, which is an integral component of the APPA Key Accounts Certificate Program.
• The Effective Key Accounts Toolbox
  Changes at work in the electric utility system have placed increasing pressure on public power systems to work with their key accounts.  Public power systems are seeing an increasing level of competition from existing and new competitors.  Often these competitors are well-funded IOUs or power marketers.  It is unreasonable to expect public power systems to be able to compete with these competitors on a dollar-for-dollar basis.  Therefore, public power systems must leverage every resource they have to create competitive advantage.  As with any profession, the key account representatives at a public power system must work with the right tools.  The heart of this course is an analysis and application of existing resources the representative can utilize to improve the system’s relationship with the customer.  This course is targeted toward employees who call on key accounts and those who support them. 

Fee Structure

APPA charges a flat fee plus travel expenses for the instructor(s). This fee covers course development, instruction, course materials, and shipping. Your organization is responsible for obtaining a training room, and covering on-site expenses (i.e., audio-visual equipment, refreshments, etc.). As desired, your organization can collect a registration fee from each attendee. Depending on the course objectives, attendance is limited since these courses are highly interactive.

For More Information:

Heidi Lambert
Education Manager
American Public Power Association
2301 M Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20037
202/467-2976
hlambert@appanet.org