Bill Text: CA AB50 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Amended
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
Bill Title: Public utilities: timely service: customer energization.
Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 9-1)
Status: (Passed) 2023-10-07 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 317, Statutes of 2023. [AB50 Detail]
Download: California-2023-AB50-Amended.html
Bill Title: Public utilities: timely service: customer energization.
Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 9-1)
Status: (Passed) 2023-10-07 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 317, Statutes of 2023. [AB50 Detail]
Download: California-2023-AB50-Amended.html
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May 18, 2023 |
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May 01, 2023 |
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April 17, 2023 |
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March 23, 2023 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly Bill
No. 50
| Introduced by Assembly Member Wood (Coauthors: Assembly Members Aguiar-Curry, Berman, Connolly, Jim Patterson, and Robert Rivas) (Coauthors: Senators Dodd, McGuire, and Wiener) |
December 05, 2022 |
An act to amend Section 451 of, and to add Section 783.4 to, the Public Utilities Code, relating to public utilities.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 50, as amended, Wood.
Public utilities: timely service: customer energization.
Existing law authorizes the Public Utilities Commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility, and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law requires a public utility to furnish and maintain such adequate, efficient, just, and reasonable service, instrumentalities, equipment, and facilities as are necessary to promote the safety, health, comfort, and convenience of its patrons, employees, and the public. Existing law requires the commission to enforce rules governing the extension of service by electrical corporations.
This bill would additionally require a public utility to furnish and maintain timely service, instrumentalities, equipment, and facilities. The bill would require the commission, on or before January 1, 2025, to determine the criteria for timely service for electric customers,
including, among other things, reasonable average energization time periods for categories of timely service and consideration of whether a customer should be credited for financial damages suffered from a significant delay, service, as specified. Until the commission determines the criteria, the bill would require each large electrical corporation, among other things, to take all practical measures to deliver electric service within 90 days of issuing a written commitment to serve for customers seeking a new connection, and within 30 days of issuing a written commitment to serve for customers seeking upgrades to an existing connection. To facilitate the achievement of the goal of timely electric service, the bill would require each large electrical corporation to evaluate and update, as necessary, its existing
distribution planning process, as specified. In order to evaluate the timely performance of each large electrical corporation in meeting the energization timelines in written commitments to serve, and to inform the commission’s determination of criteria for timely service, the bill would require the commission to annually collect certain information from each large electrical corporation until new reporting requirements are established.
Under the Public Utilities Act, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirements of the commission is a crime.
Because the above-described provisions would be a part of the act, a violation of which would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
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.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: YESBill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
Section 451 of the Public Utilities Code is amended to read:451.
(a) All charges demanded or received by any public utility, or by any two or more public utilities, for any product or commodity furnished or to be furnished or any service rendered or to be rendered shall be just and reasonable. Every unjust or unreasonable charge demanded or received for a product or commodity or service is unlawful.(b) Every public utility shall furnish and maintain such adequate, efficient, just, reasonable, and timely service, instrumentalities, equipment, and facilities, including telephone facilities, as defined in Section 54.1 of the Civil Code, as are necessary to promote the safety, health, comfort, and convenience of its patrons,
employees, and the public.
(c) All rules made by a public utility affecting or pertaining to its charges or service to the public shall be just and reasonable.
SEC. 2.
Section 783.4 is added to the Public Utilities Code, to read:783.4.
(a) On or before January 1, 2025, the commission shall determine the criteria for timely service for electric customers, as required pursuant Section 451. The criteria shall include, but are not limited to, all of the following:(1) Categories of timely electric service, including, but not limited to, all of the following:
(A) The timely start of service for new connections after a customer has submitted a request.
(B) The timely fulfillment of requests for increased load from existing connections after a customer has submitted a request for increased
load.
(C) Project exceptions that justify unique or extended energization timelines. These may include, but are not limited to, projects requiring substantial upstream capacity upgrades or substation upgrades, unanticipated engineering or construction work, or projects requiring energization of significant, unanticipated new load.
(2) Establishing reasonable average energization time periods for each category of timely service identified pursuant to paragraph (1).
(3) Establishing annual reporting requirements for the large electrical corporations to report customer energization projects in order to evaluate the large electrical corporations fulfillment of timely electric service.
(4)Consideration of whether a customer should be credited, using nonratepayer funds, for financial damages suffered from a significant delay to committed energization timelines. The commission shall establish the credit value, if it determines customer credits are appropriate, and shall consider circumstances where credits may be waived upon a showing by a large electrical corporation that unanticipated events, or events outside of the large electrical corporation’s control, occurring after the date of the written commitment to serve, justify the delay.
(5)
(4) Annually convening a public workshop of interested parties and experts in customer energization, including representatives from local governments, to examine existing workflows and to propose improvements to planning, timelines, processes, and customer communication and education, as well as criteria for determining timely service. The workshops shall inform the commission
in its determination of the criteria for timely service for electric customers, as well as any subsequent revisions to established criteria.
(b) Until the commission determines the criteria for timely service of electric customers pursuant to subdivision (a), all of the following shall apply:
(1) For customers seeking a new connection, each large electrical corporation shall take all practical measures to deliver electric service within 90 days of issuing a written commitment to serve.
(2) For customers seeking upgrades to an existing connection, each large electrical corporation shall take all practical measures to deliver electric service within 30 days of issuing a written commitment to serve.
(3) Each large electrical corporation shall respond to
the customer in writing within 30 days of receipt of a request for service.
(4) A written response to a request for service shall state whether the large electrical corporation will deliver service or not.
(5) A written response to a request for service shall state the anticipated date on which new or upgraded service will be completed, consistent with the timelines established pursuant to this subdivision, and the circumstances that may lead to a delay in the committed timeline offered.
(c) (1) To facilitate achievement of the goal of timely electric service, each large electrical corporation shall evaluate and update, as necessary, its existing distribution planning processes to ensure
that the projected demand for a given planning cycle closely matches the actual demand for new or additional service.
(2) To improve the accuracy of projected demand, each large electrical corporation shall have biannual meetings with the relevant county staff for each interested county in its service territory, which is presumed to include chief administrative officers, planning directors, public works directors, chief building officials, and economic development officials, to discuss existing capacity, planned capacity upgrades, projected demand, significant delays in customer energization in the county, and distribution planning.
(3) To reduce costs and increase the pace and scale of local projects intended to meet state, regional, and local housing and economic development
objectives, each large electrical corporation shall share information with local governments during the biannual meetings pursuant to paragraph (2), the commission, and the Energy Commission about those areas where existing capacity either exists or could be easily added, and where existing capacity is planned to be added, within the distribution system to meet those objectives.
(d) (1) In order to evaluate the timely performance of each large electrical corporation in meeting the energization timelines established pursuant to subdivision (b) in written commitments to serve, and to inform the commission’s determination of criteria for timely service pursuant to subdivision (a), the commission shall annually collect the following information from each large electrical corporation in the form of a report:
(A) The number of submitted requests for new customer connections and upgraded service during the prior year.
(B) The number of completed requests for new customer connections and upgraded service during the prior year.
(C) The number of pending and uncompleted requests for new customer connections and upgraded service at the end of the prior year.
(D) The number of days between requests for new customer connections or upgraded service and final service delivery.
(E) The number of completed requests for new customer connections and upgraded service that met the timelines established in subdivision
(b), and the number that did not.
(F) A summary of circumstances that lead to delays in projects that did not meet the timelines established in subdivision (b). The commission shall determine whether a general summary is sufficient or if a summary for each delayed project is necessary.
(G) A summary of recorded spending on customer connections and service upgrades compared to the amounts authorized for these activities for that year in the most recent general rate case.
(H) Any other information requested by the commission to evaluate the status of customer connections.
(2) This subdivision shall apply only to energization of customers and does not include
interconnection of generation resources to either the distribution or transmission grid.
(3) The reporting requirement in this subdivision shall become inoperative once the commission establishes new reporting requirements for monitoring timely electric service pursuant to paragraph (3) of subdivision (a).
