BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  SB 674
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   June 20, 2011

                    ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON UTILITIES AND COMMERCE
                               Steven Bradford, Chair
                 SB 674 (Padilla) - As Introduced:  February 18, 2011

          SENATE VOTE  :   39-0
           
          SUBJECT  :   Data Security; California Solar Initiative Rebates 
          for Mobile Home Parks; and repeal obsolete statute.

           SUMMARY  :   This bill deletes an obsolete provision in law, 
          clarifies treatment of photovoltaic rebates when projects are 
          installed in mobile home parks, and extends privacy provisions 
          for utility customers to 3rd party consultants.  Specifically, 
           this bill  :  

          1)Clarifies that contracts between utilities and third parties 
            involving access to utility customer data require prior 
            consent from customers.

          2)Excludes California Solar Initiative incentives from the 
            definition of a rebate for solar thermal or photovoltaic 
            systems that serve the common area of a mobile home park.

          3)Repeals provisions in statute related to interconnection rules 
            applicable to Federal Communication rules affecting local 
            exchange carriers.

           EXISTING LAW  

          Requires electric and gas investor owned and publicly owned 
          utilities to protect their customer energy usage data from 
          unauthorized access or disclosure. If Investor Owned Utilities 
          (IOUs) or Publicly Owned Utilities (POUs) contract with 3rd 
          party data services to allow a customer to access billing data 
          current law provides that customers may use the services without 
          sharing their data with a 3rd party.

          Requires the owner of a master metered mobile home park the 
          proportional share of any rebate that the mobile home park owner 
          receives from an IOU.

          Requires the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to 
          monitor and participate in a 1999 proceeding of the Federal 








                                                                  SB 674
                                                                  Page  2

          Communications Commission (FCC).

           FISCAL EFFECT  :   Unknown.

           COMMENTS  :  The author states that this is a code maintenance 
          bill which repeals an obsolete section of the Public Utilities 
          Code and makes non-controversial changes to two other sections.  
          First, this bill makes technical changes to SB 1476 (Padilla, 
          2010) which were intended in that bill but the author was 
          precluded from making due to legislative deadlines.  The 
          language clarifies the requirement in SB 1476 that parties to 
          contracts between utilities and third parties that a customer's 
          prior consent will always be required for the use and release of 
          a customer's data for a secondary commercial purpose.  Second, 
          under current law a mobile home park operator must extend any 
          funds received in the form of rebates to all of its sub-metered 
          customers (referred to as master metering).  This bill would, 
          only for incentive payments under the California Solar 
          Initiative, permit the mobile home park owner to receive and 
          retain the incentive payments if the installed solar only serves 
          the common area of the mobile home park.

           REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION  :   

           Support 
           
          Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA)

           Opposition 
           
          None on file.
           
          Analysis Prepared by  :    DaVina Flemings / U. & C. / (916) 
          319-2083