A. Analysis of Public Benefit Values Prior to the final funding hearing for each project in the WSIP, the Contractor will provide review of WSIP applicants’ physical public benefits and their values. The Contractor will review each project’s anticipated physical public benefits, as they are described in the project’s draft Contracts for the Administration of Public Benefits, and determine the value of those public benefits, based on the monetization methods described in the WSIP Technical Reference. The Contractor will compare these values to the applicant’s stated 2018 physical public benefits and quantification, determine what has changed, and provide recommendations to the Commission on the value of the project’s physical public benefits described in the Contracts for the Administration of Public Benefits. The Contractor’s analysis will account for changes to the physical public benefits between 2018 and the final funding hearing and other factors that affect benefit value, such as inflation and changes in water value. These recommendations will be used by the Commission to determine the amount to fund or allocate to each project. The timing of final funding hearings will be determined by each project’s schedule and is dependent on projects’ completion of WSIP requirements. B. Analysis of Economic and Financial Feasibility The Contractor will provide technical support in reviewing any remaining or revised final feasibility studies to assess the economic and financial feasibility of water storage projects that have been found by the Commission to be eligible to receive WSIP funding. The Contractor will review any final feasibility studies provided by WSIP project proponents and analyze the economic and financial information contained within them. The Contractor will use that information determine if the project in question is economically and financially feasible to construct and operate and provide a written report of that analysis to Commission staff.
