BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2590
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ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 2590 (Blumenfield)
As Amended May 15, 2012
Majority vote
UTILITIES & COMMERCE 12-0
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|Ayes:|Bradford, Garrick, | | |
| |Buchanan, Fong, Fuentes, | | |
| |Gorell, Roger Hern�ndez, | | |
| |Huffman, Ma, Nestande, | | |
| |Skinner, Swanson | | |
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SUMMARY : Mandates investor owned electric utilities (IOUs) to
post any reports required by a revision to the California Public
Utilities Commission's Electric Rule 21 on its Internet Web site
if that revision is adopted after January 1, 2012.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by the
Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "alternative energy is the
path to meet California's future energy needs. We must do all
that we can to reduce barriers to producing clean, affordable
power close to where people live. Distributive energy producers
need easy access to the information currently available in order
to make smart choices about their energy projects.
"One way to assist energy producers in designing good projects
is to provide easy access to this data by making sure that all
public reports required by Electric Rule 21 are posted online.
AB 2590 ensures that future reports relating to interconnection
are electronically available so that the public, distributive
energy producers and regulators can easily access this critical
information."
Background : Interconnection rules and processes are designed to
ensure that generation
facilities connect to the electricity grid in a manner that does
create safety or reliability problems for customers who rely on
the electricity from the grid.
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In light of successful deployment of customer-side renewable
energy projects, and lower costs of renewable technologies,
there is more opportunity to develop local generation that can
serve more than one customer at a time. This type of project is
commonly known as 'distributed generation.' The Public
Utilities Commission (PUC) has implemented or is in the process
of implementing programs to encourage greater deployment of
distributed generation (DG), including the Reverse Auction
Mechanism (RAM) and Feed in Tariffs (FIT). The PUC has also
approved photovoltaic DG programs at both Pacific Gas and
Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE). These
projects range in size from one megawatt (MW) to 20 MW. For the
most part, they are designed to interconnect through the
wholesale distribution access tariff (WDAT) procedure.
The Rule 21 Settlement : The PUC established a working group to
discuss reforming the
interconnection process known as Rule 21. A settlement motion
was filed on March 21, 2012, and is pending before the PUC. The
settling parties include: the investor owned utilities; Aloha
Systems Incorporated; California Farm Bureau Federation; Center
for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies; Clean
Coalition; Interstate Renewable Energy Council Incorporated;
Sierra Club; Solar Energy Industries Association; SunEdison;
Sunlight Partners; Sustainable Conservation; and Vote Solar
Initiative.
According to the settling parties, the settlement provides
significant revision of Rule 21 in a manner that maintains
distribution and transmission grid safety, reliability and power
quality while balancing the need for a more timely, efficient
and transparent interconnection process without delay.
The Rule 21 Settlement specifies that there will be a publicly
available queue of projects and what information can be held
confidential and what cannot.
Perhaps most important, the reforms were done with an eye toward
making conforming reforms to WDAT process, which will require
the investor owned utilities to file a petition before the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to request approval
for those changes.
Transparency and open information : The intent of this bill is
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to require IOUs to post on
their Web sites any reporting requirements pursuant to changes
in PUC Rule 21. This would ensure the reports are easily
accessible to the public, distribution power generators and
regulators. The bill also defers to PUC authority relative to
confidentiality rules under Public Utilities Code Section 583.
This bill was amended in the Assembly Utilities and Commerce
Committee on May 7, 2012, to preclude the IOUs' from posting on
its Internet Web site any information proprietary to a developer
applying for interconnection.
Is this bill premature ? This bill may not be needed as some of
the utilities are already posting
Rule 21 updates on their Web site. In particular, SCE is
working on an Internet Web-based conference with the PUC and
Governor's office on the Rule 21 Phase 1 settlement changes.
According to the PUC, there are three types of reports currently
required under the revised Electric Rule 21, all of which will
contain proprietary to a developer applying for interconnection.
The three reports are: 1) a pre-application report (a quick
first look at a point of interconnection); 2) a system impact
study report (stating the impacts of the developer's proposed
generating facility); and, 3) a facilities study report (stating
the interconnection facilities that will have to be built to
accommodate the generating facility). These reports all contain
information that a developer will consider confidential and will
likely not want posted to IOU's Web site.
Moreover, PUC notes that a staff proposal is currently planned
for the PUC's open interconnection rulemaking (R.11-09-011) on
broader reporting by the electric utilities to identify overall
compliance with the revised Rule 21 once it has been formally
adopted. The proposed compliance reports will draw only on
non-confidential information and that data will be required to
be filed in the proceeding and posted publicly.
Analysis Prepared by : DaVina Flemings / U. & C. / (916)
319-2083
FN: 0003645
AB 2590
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