BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 66 (Muratsuchi) - Electricity: system reliability.
Amended: August 12, 2013 Policy Vote: EU&C 8-0
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes (see staff comment)
Hearing Date: August 30, 2013 Consultant:
Marie Liu
SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED.
Bill Summary: AB 66 would require the California Public
Utilities Commission (CPUC) to require investor-owned utilities
(IOUs) to report specific reliability information and require
the CPUC to mandate cost-effective remediation of reliability
deficiencies in the same geographic region.
Fiscal Impact (as proposed to be amended):
One-time costs of $325,000 from the Public Utilities
Reimbursement Account (special) to modify reporting
requirements and to develop the procedures for determining
required remediation based on the annual reliability report.
Ongoing costs of $100,000 from the Public Utilities
Reimbursement Account for increased review of annual
reliability reports, making remediation determinations, and
to oversee required remediation.
Background: Existing law requires the CPUC to adopt standards
for quality, safe, and reliable service by IOUs. To this end,
the CPUC has adopted a number of decisions that establish
reliability standards and reporting requirements. Specifically,
Decision 96-09-045 requires that the IOUs annually provide the
CPUC with data regarding their overall service reliability
including the frequency and duration of outages. The CPUC uses
several metrics to evaluate system reliability. The CUPC may
order remediation when a circuit behaves differently than in the
past.
Proposed Law: This bill would require the CPUC mandate IOUs to
include in annual reliability reports that are submitted after
July 1, 2014 information indicating areas with the most frequent
and longest outages by geographic regions. The CPUC would be
required to determine the geographic regions by July 1, 2014.
AB 66 (Muratsuchi)
Page 1
The CPUC would be required to use the information in the annual
reliability report to require cost-effective remediation of
reliability deficiencies if there are repeated deficiencies in
the same geographic region. The CPUC may suspend the remediation
if the costs of those actions are not justified or reasonable or
if the measures are not effective at improving safety and
reliability.
IOUs would be required to post its annual reliability report on
its website.
Staff Comments: Establishing the procedure for determining the
need for remediation and to determine the necessary information
to be added to the annual reliability report would require the
CPUC to go through the rulemaking process. Ongoing costs would
be incurred for additional annual reliability report review and
determination of necessary remediation.
This bill does not create a reimbursable state mandate as it
would change the definition of a crime.
Proposed Author Amendments: Amend to make technical and
clarifying amendments, including specifying that reliability
information should be local area instead of geographic region.