BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 512 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 4, 2011 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Felipe Fuentes, Chair AB 512 (Gordon) - As Introduced: February 15, 2011 Policy Committee: UtilitiesVote:15-0 Urgency: 15-0 State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: SUMMARY This bill increases, from one megawatt (MW) to five MWs, the capacity of a renewable energy powerplant eligible for an existing program allowing a municipality to generate excess electricity at one site owned by the municipality in order to offset usage at another municipal-owned site. FISCAL EFFECT Negligible fiscal impact to the PUC. COMMENTS 1)Background . AB 2466 (Laird)/Chapter 540 of 2008 allowed a local governmental entity to locate a small renewable electricity generating facility (up to 1 MW) in one location and have the utility credit the output of that facility against electricity the local government consumes at another location. (A 1 MW generation facility can serve about 750 single-family homes.) The intent was to allow government entities that had many different electricity meters (and thus many accounts with a utility) to produce renewable power at a location where they had very little demand, and then to use the electricity to benefit another of the entity's buildings with high demand but an unsuitable site for renewable generation. For example, a city could locate solar panels over a remote parking lot, and use the solar-generated electricity to benefit city hall. AB 1031 (Blumenfield)/Chapter 380 of 2009, expanded program eligibility to include public college and university campuses. AB 512 Page 2 2)Purpose . According to the author, this bill is intended to implement a recommendation from a November 2010 report of the Assembly Select Committee on California's Green Economy, which noted that the City of Fresno and other local governments have expressed frustration with the limitations placed on their ability to produce their own renewable energy. In particular, the City of Fresno considered generating more of their own energy through renewable projects, but determined they were not feasible due to the current 1 MW limit. The report recommended increasing the allowable limit to 5 MW. According to PG&E, no entity has used the AB 2466 program, which was established with the 1 MW capacity cap as a trial to determine if the distribution system could handle large surges in electricity coming from facilities onto wires that were only intended to serve one-way electricity deliveries. Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081