BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2761
Page A
Date of Hearing: April 28, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON UTILITIES AND COMMERCE
Steven Bradford, Chair
AB 2761 (Committee on Utilities and Commerce) - As Introduced:
March 24, 2014
SUBJECT : Public Utilities Commission: report: renewable energy
resources.
SUMMARY : This bill would require the California Public
Utilities Commission (PUC) to submit its annual report on the
fiscal impact of renewable energy programs on electrical
corporations to the policy and fiscal committees of the
Legislature by April 1, instead of the current February 1
deadline. Specifically, this bill :
1)Applies to the submission of the report mandated by Public
Utilities Code Section 910.
EXISTING LAW
1)Implements the California Renewables Portfolio Standard
Program, to attain a target of generating 33 percent of total
retail sales of electricity in California from eligible
renewable energy resources by December 31, 2020. (Public
Utilities Code 910)
2)Requires the Public Utilities Commission, by February 1 of
each year, to prepare and submit to the policy and fiscal
committees of the Legislature a report on specified topics
generally relating to the fiscal impact of renewable energy
programs on electrical corporations. (Public Utilities Code
910)
FISCAL EFFECT : NONE
COMMENTS :
1)The Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). California's RPS is
one of the most ambitious renewable energy standards in the
nation. The RPS was established in 2002 under SB 1078 Sher
(Chapter 516, Statutes of 2002), accelerated in 2006 under SB
107 Simitian (Chapter 464, Statutes of 2006), and expanded in
2011 under SBX1 2 Simitian (Chapter 1, Statutes of 2011-12).
AB 2761
Page B
Currently, the RPS requires investor-owned utilities (IOUs),
electric service providers, and community choice aggregators
to increase their procurement of eligible renewable energy
resources to 33% of total procurement by 2020. SBX1 2 mandated
new RPS procurement requirements within multi-year compliance
periods to reach the 33.0% goal.
Table 1: RPS compliance targets
-------------------------------------
|Compliance period |Retail sales |
| |target |
|-----------------------+-------------|
|2014-2016 |2014: 21.7% |
| |+ |
| |2015: 23.3% |
| |+ |
| |2016: 25.0% |
| |+ |
|-----------------------+-------------|
|2017-2020 |2017: 27.0% |
| |+ |
| |2018: 29.0% |
| |+ |
| |2019: 31.0% |
| |+ |
| |2020: 33.0% |
|-----------------------+-------------|
|2021, and each year |33.0% |
|thereafter | |
-------------------------------------
California's three large IOUs collectively served 19.6% of
their 2012 retail electricity sales with renewable power,
spending a combined total of $2.7 billion on direct RPS
procurement.<1> Numbers for 2013 are forecasted to
increase. Table 1 details these numbers for the large IOUs.
Table 2: RPS procurement and spending, large IOUs
------------------------------------------------------
|IOU |2012 |2012 |2013 |2013 |
---------------------------
<1> PUC Section 910 Report. February 2014.
www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/428F0F2F-1275-4441-9FAE-EC690AAF57AC
/0/Section910Report_2014_FINAL.pdf
AB 2761
Page C
| |procurement|procurement|procurement|procurement|
| | (percent) | (dollars) | (percent | (dollars) |
| | | |forecast) | |
|------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------|
|PG&E |19.0% |$1.2 |23.7% |$1.7 |
| | |billion | |billion |
|------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------|
|SCE |19.9% |$1.3 |23.2% |$1.4 |
| | |billion | |billion |
|------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------|
|SDG&E |20.3% |$191 |24.9% |$316 |
| | |million | |million |
------------------------------------------------------
Smaller IOUs such as Liberty, Bear Valley Electrical
Service, and PacifiCorp spent a combined $13.7 million,
with procurement ranging from 8.3 to 22.5%.
Furthermore, IOUs must balance their RPS portfolios within
various content categories related to energy and/or
renewable energy credits.
2)The Section 910 RPS report. By February 1 of each year, the
PUC must submit a written report to the policy and fiscal
committees of the Legislature including the following
information related to electrical corporations and RPS
procurement:
a) Direct and indirect costs and costs avoided (savings)
with the RPS and distributed generation programs.
b) All PUC decisions related to recovery in rates of costs
c) Changes in retail sales
d) Qualitative and quantitative information on the IOU's
diversity goals in relation to its workforce directly
involved in the RPS implementation
The complete requirements of the report are available in
Section 910 of the Public Utilities Code, and this section
applies to all electrical corporations as defined in
Section 218 of the Public Utilities Code.
3)Need for a submission date change for the Section 910 report.
AB 2761
Page D
Currently, the PUC must submit the Section 910 report to
policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature by February 1
of each year. This due date requires that the report be based
on forecasted versus actual data from the previous year and
ultimately does not allow the PUC sufficient time to compile
and verify the data, analyze trends, and prepare a report.
Each year's report must contain the previous year's data,
which are not complete or verifiable until April 18 of the
subsequent year (the end of the first quarter). This is when
electrical corporations file Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC) Form 1, containing their annual wholesale
procurement expenditures, retail sales, and additional
information.
Furthermore, all facilities producing RPS-eligible generation
must be tracked in the Western Renewable Energy Generation
Information System (WREGIS), a system used to track renewable
energy credits (RECs). WREGIS does not create a REC until 90
days after the month of generation, i.e., RECs for renewable
generation in December 2013 were not created until April 2014.
As an example, the February 2014 report contains 2013
forecasted data. Accordingly, the PUC had approximately 4
weeks to compile the 2013 forecasts and prepare the report.
Additionally, because the 2013 data were not gathered from the
electrical corporations' FERC Form 1s (which were not filed
until April 18 of this year) or the WREGIS system, numbers
were not finalized and therefore not verifiable as prepared
for the report.
This bill, by extending the required date of submission, will
better position the PUC to use actual data rather than
forecasted data in its Section 910 report to the Legislature.
It would give the PUC additional time to compile the data,
verify the data, and write the report. The ultimate result
could conceivably be a more comprehensive and useful report.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file.
AB 2761
Page E
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Brandon Gaytan / U. & C. / (916)
319-2083