Tucson Electric Power (tep) Case

Overview

Tucson Electric Power (TEP) collaborated with the University of Arizona’s Eller MBA program (Team) to develop, distribute, and analyze an unbiased survey regarding the Tucson community’s awareness and willingness to support renewable energy programs. Out of 53,923 surveys sent via e-mail to TEP customers, 6,399 people responded to the survey. The methodology and survey results are discussed below. Refer to Appendices A through D for detailed data.

Survey Development

In order to ensure that the survey results represent the views of the TEP customer base throughout the Greater Tucson area, the Team used TEP’s customer e-mail opt-in list to distribute the survey. TEP customers may elect to join this e-mail list when they initiate service with TEP. At the time of survey, the distribution list contained approximately 54,000 active e-mail accounts and Appendix A illustrates that the e-mail list is representative of the Tucson population according to the 2010 Census. The survey obtained demographic data regarding: age, zip code and sex only, to generate the highest possible response rate. Furthermore, to ensure representation of the Hispanic community, the Team created a Spanish version of the survey to obtain a better representation of the Tucson population.

TEP and the Team designed each survey question to minimize biasing respondents’ answers. Survey questions were vetted by a small group of individuals who took a pilot test, and Dr. Patricia Sias, Senior Lecturer in Leadership and Organizational Communication. The survey included combination of question types, such as ranking and a five-point rating scale, to evaluate the following topics:

- Opinion of the REST surcharge and the amount customers are willing to support

- Awareness of the Renewable Energy Standard, the implementation plan process with the ACC, and the REST surcharge

- Support for some of the programs that receive surcharge funds

- Customer opinion of how renewable resources should be sourced

- Ranking of priorities for TEP

The exact survey questions may be found Appendix C for English and Appendix D for Spanish.

TEP distributed two e-mails containing the links to the English and Spanish surveys. The first e-mail was sent on February 28 with a reminder e-mail sent on March 9. Customers were able to take the survey between February 28 and March 19. Each e-mail address could only respond to the survey once to ensure no “ballot-stuffing” occurred. Out of approximately 54,000 e-mail addresses that received the survey, 6,399 people responded to at least a portion of the survey,