BILL NUMBER: SB 1414 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN SENATE MAY 5, 2014
AMENDED IN SENATE MARCH 28, 2014
INTRODUCED BY Senator Wolk
( Coauthor: Assembly Member
Williams )
FEBRUARY 21, 2014
An act to amend Sections 380 and 454.5 of the Public Utilities
Code, relating to electricity.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 1414, as amended, Wolk. Electricity: resources adequacy
requirements.
(1) The Public Utilities Act requires the Public Utilities
Commission, in consultation with the Independent System Operator, to
establish resource adequacy requirements for all load-serving
entities in accordance with specified objectives. The act requires
each load-serving entity to maintain physical generating capacity
adequate to meet its load requirements to provide reliable electric
service. The act requires the commission to determine the most
efficient and equitable means for achieving prescribed objectives.
This bill would include maximizing the economic dispatch
of time-variant electrical demand reductions
cost-effective use of demand response as an objective for the
resource adequacy requirements referenced above. The bill would
additionally require each load-serving entity to maintain either
electrical demand reductions or physical generating capacity adequate
to meet its load requirements. The bill would require the commission
to determine the most efficient and equitable means to ensure
that the electrical demand
reductions are deployed and economically dispatched.
inclusion of demand response that is reliable and cost effective in
achieving environmental or demand reduction goals or grid
reliability.
(2) The act requires each electrical corporation to file with the
commission a proposed procurement plan with specified information,
including, among other things, a procurement process under which the
electric corporation may request bids for procurement-related
services, a showing that the procurement plan will achieve, among
other objectives, the creation or maintenance of a diversified
procurement portfolio, and the electric corporation's risk management
policy, strategy, and practices.
This bill would require the proposed procurement plan to include a
competitive procurement process that would also allow the electric
corporation to request bids for demandside reduction
response services. The bill would require that
the plan's diversified procurement portfolio include
time-variant demand reductions to minimize purchase of on-peak
generation resources. demand response that is reliable
and cost effective in achieving environmental goals and electrical
grid reliability. The bill would also require the
electrical corporation's risk management policy, strategy, and
practices, as specified in the procurement plan, to include specific
measures to reflect time-variant wholesale procurement costs in
retail electrical rates.
(3) Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or
an order or direction of the commission is a crime.
This bill would be part of the act and an order or other action of
the commission would be required to implement the bill. Because a
violation of this bill or an order or other action of the commission
implementing those provisions would be a crime, and because the bill
would make certain violations by a load-serving entity a crime, this
bill would thereby impose a state-mandated local program by creating
new crimes and by expanding the definition of existing crimes.
(4) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse
local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the
state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that
reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this
act for a specified reason.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: yes.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 380 of the Public Utilities Code is amended to
read:
380. (a) The commission, in consultation with the Independent
System Operator, shall establish resource adequacy requirements for
all load-serving entities.
(b) In establishing resource adequacy requirements, the commission
shall achieve all of the following objectives:
(1) Facilitate development of new generating capacity and
retention of existing generating capacity that is economic and
needed.
(2) Equitably allocate the cost of generating capacity and prevent
shifting of costs between customer classes.
(3) Minimize enforcement requirements and costs.
(4) Maximize the ability of community choice aggregators to
determine the generation resources used to serve their customers.
(5) Maximize the economic dispatch of time-variant
electrical demand reductions. cost-effective use of
demand response.
(c) Each load-serving entity shall maintain physical generating
capacity or electrical demand reductions adequate to meet its load
requirements, including, but not limited to, peak demand and planning
and operating reserves. The generating capacity or electrical demand
reductions shall be deliverable to locations and at times as may be
necessary to maintain electric service system reliability and local
area reliability.
(d) Each load-serving entity shall, at a minimum, meet the most
recent minimum planning reserve and reliability criteria approved by
the Board of Trustees of the Western Systems Coordinating Council or
the Western Electricity Coordinating Council.
(e) The commission shall implement and enforce the resource
adequacy requirements established in accordance with this section in
a nondiscriminatory manner. Each load-serving entity shall be subject
to the same requirements for resource adequacy and the renewables
portfolio standard program that are applicable to electrical
corporations pursuant to this section, or otherwise required by law,
or by order or decision of the commission. The commission shall
exercise its enforcement powers to ensure compliance by all
load-serving entities.
(f) The commission shall require sufficient information,
including, but not limited to, anticipated load, actual load, and
measures undertaken by a load-serving entity to ensure resource
adequacy, to be reported to enable the commission to determine
compliance with the resource adequacy requirements established by the
commission.
(g) An electrical corporation's costs of meeting resource adequacy
requirements, including, but not limited to, the costs associated
with system reliability and local area reliability, that are
determined to be reasonable by the commission, or are otherwise
recoverable under a procurement plan approved by the commission
pursuant to Section 454.5, shall be fully recoverable from those
customers on whose behalf the costs are incurred, as determined by
the commission, at the time the commitment to incur the cost is made,
on a fully nonbypassable basis, as determined by the commission. The
commission shall exclude any amounts authorized to be recovered
pursuant to Section 366.2 when authorizing the amount of costs to be
recovered from customers of a community choice aggregator or from
customers that purchase electricity through a direct transaction
pursuant to this subdivision.
(h) The commission shall determine and authorize the most
efficient and equitable means for achieving all of the following:
(1) Meeting the objectives of this section.
(2) Ensuring that investment is made in new generating capacity.
(3) Ensuring that existing generating capacity that is economic is
retained.
(4) Ensuring that the cost of generating capacity is allocated
equitably.
(5) Ensuring that community choice aggregators can determine the
generation resources used to serve their customers.
(6) Ensuring that electrical demand reductions are deployed and
economically dispatched.
(6) Ensuring inclusion of demand response that is reliable and
cost effective in achieving environmental or demand reduction goals
or grid reliability.
(i) In making the determination pursuant to subdivision (h), the
commission may consider a centralized resource adequacy mechanism
among other options.
(j) For purposes of this section, "load-serving entity" means an
electrical corporation, electric service provider, or community
choice aggregator. "Load-serving entity" does not include any of the
following:
(1) A local publicly owned electric utility.
(2) The State Water Resources Development System commonly known as
the State Water Project.
(3) Customer generation located on the customer's site or
providing electric service through arrangements authorized by Section
218, if the customer generation, or the load it serves, meets one of
the following criteria:
(A) It takes standby service from the electrical corporation on a
commission-approved rate schedule that provides for adequate backup
planning and operating reserves for the standby customer class.
(B) It is not physically interconnected to the electric
electrical transmission or distribution grid, so
that, if the customer generation fails, backup electricity is not
supplied from the electricity electrical
grid.
(C) There is physical assurance that the load served by the
customer generation will be curtailed concurrently and commensurately
with an outage of the customer generation.
SEC. 2. Section 454.5 of the Public Utilities Code is amended to
read:
454.5. (a) The commission shall specify the allocation of
electricity, including quantity, characteristics, and duration of
electricity delivery, that the Department of Water Resources shall
provide under its power purchase agreements to the customers of each
electrical corporation, which shall be reflected in the electrical
corporation's proposed procurement plan. Each electrical corporation
shall file a proposed procurement plan with the commission not later
than 60 days after the commission specifies the allocation of
electricity. The proposed procurement plan shall specify the date
that the electrical corporation intends to resume procurement of
electricity for its retail customers, consistent with its obligation
to serve. After the commission's adoption of a procurement plan, the
commission shall allow not less than 60 days before the electrical
corporation resumes procurement pursuant to this section.
(b) An electrical corporation's proposed procurement plan shall
include, but not be limited to, all of the following:
(1) An assessment of the price risk associated with the electrical
corporation's portfolio, including any utility-retained generation,
existing power purchase and exchange contracts, and proposed
contracts or purchases under which an electrical corporation will
procure electricity, electricity demand reductions, and
electricity-related products and the remaining open position to be
served by spot market transactions.
(2) A definition of each electricity product, electricity-related
product, and procurement related financial product, including support
and justification for the product type and amount to be procured
under the plan.
(3) The duration of the plan.
(4) The duration, timing, and range of quantities of each product
to be procured.
(5) A competitive procurement process under which the electrical
corporation may request bids for procurement-related services and
demand reduction response services,
including the format and criteria of that procurement process.
(6) An incentive mechanism, if any incentive mechanism is
proposed, including the type of transactions to be covered by that
mechanism, their respective procurement benchmarks, and other
parameters needed to determine the sharing of risks and benefits.
(7) The upfront standards and criteria by which the acceptability
and eligibility for rate recovery of a proposed procurement
transaction will be known by the electrical corporation prior to
execution of the transaction. This shall include an expedited
approval process for the commission's review of proposed contracts
and subsequent approval or rejection thereof. The electrical
corporation shall propose alternative procurement choices in the
event a contract is rejected.
(8) Procedures for updating the procurement plan.
(9) A showing that the procurement plan will achieve the
following:
(A) The electrical corporation, in order to fulfill its unmet
resource needs, shall procure resources from eligible renewable
energy resources in an amount sufficient to meet its procurement
requirements pursuant to the California Renewables Portfolio Standard
Program (Article 16 (commencing with Section 399.11) of Chapter
2.3).
(B) The electrical corporation shall create or maintain a
diversified procurement portfolio consisting of both short-term and
long-term electricity and electricity-related and demand reduction
products, including time-variant demand reductions to
minimize purchase of on-peak generation resources.
demand response that is reliable and cost effective in achieving
environmental goals and electrical grid reliability.
(C) The electrical corporation shall first meet its unmet resource
needs through all available energy efficiency and demand reduction
resources that are cost effective, reliable, and feasible.
(10) The electrical corporation's risk management policy,
strategy, and practices, including specific measures of price
stability and specific measures to reflect time-variant
wholesale procurement costs in retail electrical rates.
(11) A plan to achieve appropriate increases in diversity of
ownership and diversity of fuel supply of nonutility electrical
generation.
(12) A mechanism for recovery of reasonable administrative costs
related to procurement in the generation component of rates.
(c) The commission shall review and accept, modify, or reject each
electrical corporation's procurement plan. The commission's review
shall consider each electrical corporation's individual procurement
situation, and shall give strong consideration to that situation in
determining which one or more of the features set forth in this
subdivision shall apply to that electrical corporation. A procurement
plan approved by the commission shall contain one or more of the
following features, provided that the commission may not approve a
feature or mechanism for an electrical corporation if it finds that
the feature or mechanism would impair the restoration of an
electrical corporation's creditworthiness or would lead to a
deterioration of an electrical corporation's creditworthiness:
(1) A competitive procurement process under which the electrical
corporation may request bids for procurement-related services. The
commission shall specify the format of that procurement process, as
well as criteria to ensure that the auction process is open and
adequately subscribed. Any purchases made in compliance with the
commission-authorized process shall be recovered in the generation
component of rates.
(2) An incentive mechanism that establishes a procurement
benchmark or benchmarks and authorizes the electrical corporation to
procure from the market, subject to comparing the electrical
corporation's performance to the commission-authorized benchmark or
benchmarks. The incentive mechanism shall be clear, achievable, and
contain quantifiable objectives and standards. The incentive
mechanism shall contain balanced risk and reward incentives that
limit the risk and reward of an electrical corporation.
(3) Upfront achievable standards and criteria by which the
acceptability and eligibility for rate recovery of a proposed
procurement transaction will be known by the electrical corporation
prior to the execution of the bilateral contract for the transaction.
The commission shall provide for expedited review and either approve
or reject the individual contracts submitted by the electrical
corporation to ensure compliance with its procurement plan. To the
extent the commission rejects a proposed contract pursuant to this
criteria, the commission shall designate alternative procurement
choices obtained in the procurement plan that will be recoverable for
ratemaking purposes.
(d) A procurement plan approved by the commission shall accomplish
each of the following objectives:
(1) Enable the electrical corporation to fulfill its obligation to
serve its customers at just and reasonable rates.
(2) Eliminate the need for after-the-fact reasonableness reviews
of an electrical corporation's actions in compliance with an approved
procurement plan, including resulting electricity procurement
contracts, practices, and related expenses. However, the commission
may establish a regulatory process to verify and ensure that each
contract was administered in accordance with the terms of the
contract, and contract disputes that may arise are reasonably
resolved.
(3) Ensure timely recovery of prospective procurement costs
incurred pursuant to an approved procurement plan. The commission
shall establish rates based on forecasts of procurement costs adopted
by the commission, actual procurement costs incurred, or combination
thereof, as determined by the commission. The commission shall
establish power procurement balancing accounts to track the
differences between recorded revenues and costs incurred pursuant to
an approved procurement plan. The commission shall review the power
procurement balancing accounts, not less than semiannually, and shall
adjust rates or order refunds, as necessary, to promptly amortize a
balancing account, according to a schedule determined by the
commission. Until January 1, 2006, the commission shall ensure that
any overcollection or undercollection in the power procurement
balancing account does not exceed 5 percent of the electrical
corporation's actual recorded generation revenues for the prior
calendar year excluding revenues collected for the Department of
Water Resources. The commission shall determine the schedule for
amortizing the overcollection or undercollection in the balancing
account to ensure that the 5 percent threshold is not exceeded. After
January 1, 2006, this adjustment shall occur when deemed appropriate
by the commission consistent with the objectives of this section.
(4) Moderate the price risk associated with serving its retail
customers, including the price risk embedded in its long-term supply
contracts, by authorizing an electrical corporation to enter into
financial and other electricity-related product contracts.
(5) Provide for just and reasonable rates, with an appropriate
balancing of price stability and price level in the electrical
corporation's procurement plan.
(e) The commission shall provide for the periodic review and
prospective modification of an electrical corporation's procurement
plan.
(f) The commission may engage an independent consultant or
advisory service to evaluate risk management and strategy. The
reasonable costs of any consultant or advisory service is a
reimbursable expense and eligible for funding pursuant to Section
631.
(g) The commission shall adopt appropriate procedures to ensure
the confidentiality of any market sensitive information submitted in
an electrical corporation's proposed procurement plan or resulting
from or related to its approved procurement plan, including, but not
limited to, proposed or executed power purchase agreements, data
request responses, or consultant reports, or any combination,
provided that the Office of Ratepayer Advocates and other consumer
groups that are nonmarket participants shall be provided access to
this information under confidentiality procedures authorized by the
commission.
(h) Nothing in this section alters, modifies, or amends the
commission's oversight of affiliate transactions under its rules and
decisions or the commission's existing authority to investigate and
penalize an electrical corporation's alleged fraudulent activities,
or to disallow costs incurred as a result of gross incompetence,
fraud, abuse, or similar grounds. Nothing in this section expands,
modifies, or limits the State Energy Resources Conservation and
Development Commission's existing authority and responsibilities as
set forth in Sections 25216, 25216.5, and 25323 of the Public
Resources Code.
(i) An electrical corporation that serves less than 500,000
electric retail customers within the state may file with the
commission a request for exemption from this section, which the
commission shall grant upon a showing of good cause.
(j) (1) Prior to its approval pursuant to Section 851 of any
divestiture of generation assets owned by an electrical corporation
on or after the date of enactment of the act adding this section, the
commission shall determine the impact of the proposed divestiture on
the electrical corporation's procurement rates and shall approve a
divestiture only to the extent it finds, taking into account the
effect of the divestiture on procurement rates, that the divestiture
is in the public interest and will result in net ratepayer benefits.
(2) Any electrical corporation's procurement necessitated as a
result of the divestiture of generation assets on or after the
effective date of the act adding this subdivision shall be subject to
the mechanisms and procedures set forth in this section only if its
actual cost is less than the recent historical cost of the divested
generation assets.
(3) Notwithstanding paragraph (2), the commission may deem
proposed procurement eligible to use the procedures in this section
upon its approval of asset divestiture pursuant to Section 851.
SEC. 3. No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to
Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because
the only costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school
district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or
infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty
for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the
Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the
meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California
Constitution.