BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  AB 1186
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   May 4, 2011

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                   AB 1186 (Skinner) - As Amended:  March 25, 2011 

          Policy Committee:                              
          UtilitiesVote:13-0 (Consent)

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill requires all retail suppliers of electricity, in their 
          statutorily required disclosures of the percentage of annual 
          sales from specified energy sources, to separate natural gas 
          used for conventional powerplant and peaker plant generation 
          from natural gas used for combined heat and power system 
          generation.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          Negligible fiscal impact.

           COMMENTS  

           1)Background  . SB 1305 (Sher)/Chapter 796 of 1997, required 
            retail suppliers of electricity to provide customers with a 
            Power Content Label, listing the amount of eligible renewable 
            (biomass and waste, geothermal, solar, small hydroelectric, 
            and wind energy), coal, large hydroelectric, natural gas and 
            "other" resources being used in their product. This allows 
            retail suppliers of electricity to distinguish their products 
            from other electricity products in the market on the basis of 
            power content.


            All powerplants and many industrial processes emit a certain 
            amount of heat during electricity generation. While this heat 
            by-product can be released into the natural environment 
            through cooling towers or other means, cogeneration is the 
            process of harnessing this heat and producing two useful 
            outputs: heat and power. Cogeneration produces a given amount 








                                                                  AB 1186
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            of electric power and process heat with 10% to 30% less fuel 
            than it takes to produce the electricity and process heat 
            separately.


           2)Purpose  . According to the author, this bill will educate 
            consumers and policymakers about CHP technology and help the 
            state to determine where it states with respect to the 
            ambitious CHP targets set by the Air Resources Board and 
            Governor Brown.  Governor Brown has set goals to develop more 
            cogeneration projects to increase CHP production by 6,500 
            megawatts.

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081