BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  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