Bill Text: CA AB2689 | 2019-2020 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Electrical and gas corporations: reporting.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2020-05-05 - Re-referred to Com. on U. & E. [AB2689 Detail]
Download: California-2019-AB2689-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Assembly
May 04, 2020 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2019–2020 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly Bill
No. 2689
| Introduced by Assembly Member Kalra |
February 20, 2020 |
An act to amend Section 331.1 of 454.5 of, and to add Section 593 to, the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity. public utilities.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 2689, as amended, Kalra.
Community choice aggregators. Electrical and gas corporations: reporting.
(1) Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. The Public Utilities Act requires the commission to review and accept, modify, or reject a procurement plan for each electrical corporation in accordance with specified requirements and objectives. The act requires the commission to adopt appropriate procedures to ensure the confidentiality of any market sensitive information submitted in an electrical corporation’s proposed procurement plan or resulting from or related to the electrical corporation’s approved procurement plan.
This bill would
require the procedures adopted by the commission to ensure that all information that is reasonably necessary to verify the accuracy of any cost an electrical corporation seeks to recover in rates and charges assessed on bundled or unbundled ratepayers is available without unreasonable restriction to a person participating in commission proceedings in which an electrical corporation seeks approval to recover those costs. The bill would require the commission to ensure that this information is provided for inspection to other load-serving entities in those proceedings, as specified.
(2) Existing law requires a public utility to furnish reports and other information as the commission may require.
This bill would require the commission to require an electrical or gas corporation to annually submit a
report to the commission that identifies the electrical or gas corporation’s equipment that is past its useful life and natural gas and diesel backup generation, and that provides related maintenance and safety information, as specified. The bill would require the commission to make those reports available to the public, except as provided.
(3) Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and a violation of its provisions or a related order or decision of the commission would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(4) Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest.
This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.
(5) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified
reason.
Existing law authorizes a community choice aggregator to aggregate the electrical load of electricity consumers within its boundaries and provides that the community choice aggregator is solely responsible for all generation procurement activities on behalf of the community choice aggregator’s customers, except where other generation procurement arrangements are expressly authorized by statute.
This bill would make nonsubstantive changes to the definition of “community choice aggregator.”
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee:Bill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares that increased transparency and accountability are necessary to ensure that charges assessed by electrical corporations are just and reasonable and that expenditures that electrical corporations recover in rates to complete safety and reliability improvements are prudently spent for their intended purpose.SEC. 2.
Section 454.5 of the Public Utilities Code is amended to read:454.5.
(a) The commission shall specify the allocation of electricity, including quantity, characteristics, and duration of electricity delivery, that the Department of Water Resources shall provide under its power purchase agreements to the customers of each electrical corporation, which shall be reflected in the electrical corporation’s proposed procurement plan. Each electrical corporation shall file a proposed procurement plan with the commission not later than 60 days after the commission specifies the allocation of electricity. The proposed procurement plan shall specify the date that the electrical corporation intends to resume procurement of electricity for its retail customers, consistent with its obligation to serve. After the commission’s adoption of a procurement plan, the commission shall allow not less than 60 days before the electrical corporation resumes procurement pursuant to this section.(b) An electrical corporation’s proposed procurement plan shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following:
(1) An assessment of the price risk associated with the electrical corporation’s portfolio, including any utility-retained generation, existing power purchase and exchange contracts, and proposed contracts or purchases under which an electrical corporation will procure electricity, electricity demand reductions, and electricity-related products and the remaining open position to be served by spot market transactions.
(2) A definition of each electricity product, electricity-related product, and procurement related financial product, including support and justification for the product type and amount to be procured under
the plan.
(3) The duration of the plan.
(4) The duration, timing, and range of quantities of each product to be procured.
(5) A competitive procurement process under which the electrical corporation may request bids for procurement-related services, including the format and criteria of that procurement process.
(6) An incentive mechanism, if any incentive mechanism is proposed, including the type of transactions to be covered by that mechanism, their respective procurement benchmarks, and other parameters needed to determine the sharing of risks and benefits.
(7) The upfront standards and criteria by which the acceptability and eligibility for rate recovery of a proposed procurement
transaction will be known by the electrical corporation prior to execution of the transaction. This shall include an expedited approval process for the commission’s review of proposed contracts and subsequent approval or rejection thereof. The electrical corporation shall propose alternative procurement choices in the event a contract is rejected.
(8) Procedures for updating the procurement plan.
(9) A showing that the procurement plan will achieve the following:
(A) The electrical corporation, in order to fulfill its unmet resource needs, shall procure resources from eligible renewable energy resources in an amount sufficient to meet its procurement requirements pursuant to the California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program (Article 16 (commencing with Section 399.11) of Chapter 2.3).
(B) The electrical corporation shall create or maintain a diversified procurement portfolio consisting of both short-term and long-term electricity and electricity-related and demand reduction products.
(C) (i) The electrical corporation shall first meet its unmet resource needs through all available energy efficiency and demand reduction resources that are cost effective, reliable, and feasible.
(ii) In determining the availability of cost-effective, reliable, and feasible demand reduction resources, the commission shall consider the findings regarding technically and economically achievable demand reduction in the Demand Response Potential Study required pursuant to Commission Order D.14-12-024, to the extent those findings are not superseded by other demand reduction studies conducted by
academic institutions or government agencies, and to the extent that any demand reduction is consistent with commission policy.
(D) (i) The electrical corporation, in soliciting bids for new gas-fired generating units, shall actively seek bids for resources that are not gas-fired generating units located in communities that suffer from cumulative pollution burdens, including, but not limited to, high emission levels of toxic air contaminants, criteria air pollutants, and greenhouse gases.
(ii) In considering bids for, or negotiating contracts for, new gas-fired generating units, the electrical corporation shall provide greater preference to resources that are not gas-fired generating units located in communities that suffer from cumulative pollution burdens, including, but not limited to, high emission levels of toxic air contaminants, criteria air
pollutants, and greenhouse gases.
(iii) This subparagraph does not apply to contracts signed by an electrical corporation and approved by the commission prior to January 1, 2017.
(10) The electrical corporation’s risk management policy, strategy, and practices, including specific measures of price stability.
(11) A plan to achieve appropriate increases in diversity of ownership and diversity of fuel supply of nonutility electrical generation.
(12) A mechanism for recovery of reasonable administrative costs related to procurement in the generation component of rates.
(c) The commission shall review and accept, modify, or reject each electrical corporation’s procurement plan and any
amendments or updates to the plan. The commission shall ensure that the plan contains the elements required by this section, including the elements described in subparagraphs (C) and (D) of paragraph (9) of subdivision (b). The commission’s review shall consider each electrical corporation’s individual procurement situation, and shall give strong consideration to that situation in determining which one or more of the features set forth in this subdivision shall apply to that electrical corporation. A procurement plan approved by the commission shall contain one or more of the following features, provided that the commission may not approve a feature or mechanism for an electrical corporation if it finds that the feature or mechanism would impair the restoration of an electrical corporation’s creditworthiness or would lead to a deterioration of an electrical corporation’s creditworthiness:
(1) A competitive procurement process under which the
electrical corporation may request bids for procurement-related services. The commission shall specify the format of that procurement process, as well as criteria to ensure that the auction process is open and adequately subscribed. Any purchases made in compliance with the commission-authorized process shall be recovered in the generation component of rates.
(2) An incentive mechanism that establishes a procurement benchmark or benchmarks and authorizes the electrical corporation to procure from the market, subject to comparing the electrical corporation’s performance to the commission-authorized benchmark or benchmarks. The incentive mechanism shall be clear, achievable, and contain quantifiable objectives and standards. The incentive mechanism shall contain balanced risk and reward incentives that limit the risk and reward of an electrical corporation.
(3) Upfront achievable
standards and criteria by which the acceptability and eligibility for rate recovery of a proposed procurement transaction will be known by the electrical corporation prior to the execution of the bilateral contract for the transaction. The commission shall provide for expedited review and either approve or reject the individual contracts submitted by the electrical corporation to ensure compliance with its procurement plan. To the extent the commission rejects a proposed contract pursuant to this criteria, the commission shall designate alternative procurement choices obtained in the procurement plan that will be recoverable for ratemaking purposes.
(d) A procurement plan approved by the commission shall accomplish each of the following objectives:
(1) Enable the electrical corporation to fulfill its obligation to serve its customers at just and reasonable rates.
(2) Eliminate the need for after-the-fact reasonableness reviews of an electrical corporation’s actions in compliance with an approved procurement plan, including resulting electricity procurement contracts, practices, and related expenses. However, the commission may establish a regulatory process to verify and ensure that each contract was administered in accordance with the terms of the contract, and contract disputes that may arise are reasonably resolved.
(3) Ensure timely recovery of prospective procurement costs incurred pursuant to an approved procurement plan. The commission shall establish rates based on forecasts of procurement costs adopted by the commission, actual procurement costs incurred, or combination thereof, as determined by the commission. The commission shall establish power procurement balancing accounts to track the differences between recorded revenues and
costs incurred pursuant to an approved procurement plan. The commission shall review the power procurement balancing accounts, not less than semiannually, and shall adjust rates or order refunds, as necessary, to promptly amortize a balancing account, according to a schedule determined by the commission. Until January 1, 2006, the commission shall ensure that any overcollection or undercollection in the power procurement balancing account does not exceed 5 percent of the electrical corporation’s actual recorded generation revenues for the prior calendar year excluding revenues collected for the Department of Water Resources. The commission shall determine the schedule for amortizing the overcollection or undercollection in the balancing account to ensure that the 5-percent threshold is not exceeded. After January 1, 2006, this adjustment shall occur when deemed appropriate by the commission consistent with the objectives of this section.
(4) Moderate the price risk associated with serving its retail customers, including the price risk embedded in its long-term supply contracts, by authorizing an electrical corporation to enter into financial and other electricity-related product contracts.
(5) Provide for just and reasonable rates, with an appropriate balancing of price stability and price level in the electrical corporation’s procurement plan.
(e) The commission shall provide for the periodic review and prospective modification of an electrical corporation’s procurement plan.
(f) The commission may engage an independent consultant or advisory service to evaluate risk management and strategy. The reasonable costs of any consultant or advisory service is a reimbursable expense and eligible for funding pursuant to Section 631.
(g) (1) The commission shall adopt appropriate procedures to ensure the confidentiality of any market sensitive information submitted in an electrical corporation’s proposed procurement plan or resulting from or related to its approved procurement plan, including, but not limited to, proposed or executed power purchase agreements, data request responses, or consultant reports, or any combination of these, provided that the Public Advocate’s Office of the Public Utilities Commission and other consumer groups that are nonmarket participants shall be provided access to this information under confidentiality procedures authorized by the commission.
(2) (A) The procedures adopted by the commission shall also ensure that all information that is reasonably necessary to verify the accuracy of any cost that an electrical corporation seeks to recover in rates and charges that are assessed on bundled or unbundled ratepayers is available without unreasonable restriction to a person participating in commission proceedings in which an electrical corporation seeks approval to recover those costs. The commission shall ensure that this information is provided for inspection to other load-serving entities in those proceedings, and that the reviewing representative of a load-serving entity has access to the information under a reasonable nondisclosure agreement, in a form approved by the commission, that does not restrict a reviewing representative of a load-serving entity from performing work as a market participant.
(B) For purposes of this paragraph, “load-serving entity” has the same meaning as defined in Section 380.
(h) Nothing in this section alters, modifies, or amends the commission’s oversight of affiliate transactions under its rules and decisions or the commission’s existing authority to investigate and penalize an electrical corporation’s alleged fraudulent activities, or to disallow costs incurred as a result of gross incompetence, fraud, abuse, or similar grounds. Nothing in this section expands, modifies, or limits the Energy Commission’s existing authority and responsibilities as set forth in Sections 25216, 25216.5, and 25323 of the Public Resources Code.
(i) An electrical corporation that serves less than 500,000 electric retail customers within the state may file with the commission a
request for exemption from this section, which the commission shall grant upon a showing of good cause.
(j) (1) Prior to its approval pursuant to Section 851 of any divestiture of generation assets owned by an electrical corporation on or after the date of enactment of the act adding this section, the commission shall determine the impact of the proposed divestiture on the electrical corporation’s procurement rates and shall approve a divestiture only to the extent it finds, taking into account the effect of the divestiture on procurement rates, that the divestiture is in the public interest and will result in net ratepayer benefits.
(2) Any electrical corporation’s procurement necessitated as a result of the divestiture of generation assets on or after the effective date of the act adding this subdivision shall be subject to the mechanisms and procedures set
forth in this section only if its actual cost is less than the recent historical cost of the divested generation assets.
(3) Notwithstanding paragraph (2), the commission may deem proposed procurement eligible to use the procedures in this section upon its approval of asset divestiture pursuant to Section 851.
(k) The commission shall direct electrical corporations to include in their proposed procurement plans the integration costs described and determined pursuant to clause (v) of subparagraph (A) of paragraph (5) of subdivision (a) of Section 399.13.
(l) Prior to approving an electrical corporation’s contract for any new gas-fired generating unit, the commission shall require the electrical corporation to demonstrate compliance with its approved procurement plan.
SEC. 3.
Section 593 is added to the Public Utilities Code, to read:593.
(a) The commission shall require an electrical or gas corporation to annually submit a report to the commission, as part of an ongoing proceeding or in a report otherwise required to be submitted to the commission, that does all of the following:(1) Identifies all of the electrical or gas corporation’s equipment that is past its useful life based on manufacturer’s recommendations for the equipment and prudent utility practices.
(2) Identifies all of the electrical or gas corporation’s natural gas and diesel backup generation.
(3) Details the most recent inspection of the equipment identified in paragraphs (1) and
(2).
(4) Includes the maintenance records for the equipment identified in paragraphs (1) and (2).
(5) Provides a list of the electrical or gas corporation’s investments made since its last report pursuant to this section to maintain and improve the safety and reliability of the equipment identified in paragraphs (1) and (2).
(6) Provides an assessment of the current and future fire and safety risk posed by the equipment identified in paragraphs (1) and (2).
(b) The commission shall review the reports submitted pursuant to subdivision (a) for accuracy and shall ensure that each report submitted is made available to the public, except that the commission may, consistent with other provisions of law, withhold from the public information generated or
obtained pursuant to this section that the commission deems would pose a security threat to the public if disclosed.
SEC. 4.
The Legislature finds and declares that Section 3 of this act, which adds Section 593 to the Public Utilities Code, imposes a limitation on the public’s right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies within the meaning of Section 3 of Article I of the California Constitution. Pursuant to that constitutional provision, the Legislature makes the following findings to demonstrate the interest protected by this limitation and the need for protecting that interest:This act balances the right of the public to
access information about the condition of utility infrastructure with the need to protect public safety by preventing the disclosure of information about vulnerabilities in the state’s critical electrical and gas infrastructure.
SEC. 5.
No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because the only costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution.For purposes of this chapter, “community choice aggregator” means any of the following entities, if that entity is not within the jurisdiction of a local publicly owned electric utility that provided electrical service as of January 1, 2003:
(a)A city, county, or city and county whose governing board elects to combine the loads of its residents, businesses, and municipal facilities in a communitywide electricity buyers’ program.
(b)A
group of cities, counties, or cities and counties whose governing boards have elected to combine the loads of their programs, through the formation of a joint powers agency established under Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 6500) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code.
(c)The Kings River Conservation District, the Sonoma County Water Agency, or a California public agency possessing statutory authority to generate and deliver electricity at retail within its designated jurisdiction, provided the entity may only combine the loads of residences, businesses, and governmental facilities of cities and counties within, or contiguous to, its jurisdiction that have, by resolution exercised pursuant to paragraph (12) of
subdivision (c) of Section 366.2, requested the agency to implement a community choice aggregation program.
