Bill Text: CA SB356 | 2017-2018 | Regular Session | Amended

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Energy data transparency.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2-0)

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2017-09-01 - September 1 hearing: Held in committee and under submission. [SB356 Detail]

Download: California-2017-SB356-Amended.html

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Amended  IN  Senate  March 23, 2017

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill

No. 356

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Introduced by Senator Skinner

February 14, 2017

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An act to amend Section 1 of Chapter 469 of the Statutes of 2010, relating to energy. An act to amend Section 25402.10 of, and to add Sections 25402.13 and 25402.14 to, the Public Resources Code, and to add Section 323.7 to the Public Utilities Code, relating to energy.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 356, as amended, Skinner. Energy storage systems. Energy data transparency.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires the commission to open a proceeding to determine appropriate targets, if any, for each load-serving entity, as defined, to procure viable and cost-effective energy storage systems to be achieved by December 31, 2015, and December 31, 2020. to make certain information regarding electric service and electrical corporations available on its Internet Web site. Existing law provides for the establishment of an Independent System Operator (ISO) as a nonprofit public benefit corporation and requires the ISO to make certain filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and to seek authority from FERC as needed to give the ISO the ability to secure generating and transmission resources necessary to guarantee achievement of planning and operating reserve criteria no less stringent than those established by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council and the North American Electric Reliability Council.

This bill would make a nonsubstantive change in legislative findings and declarations adopted with the above-described energy storage system requirements.

This bill would require the PUC and the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission), by June 1, 2018, to jointly make available electronically to the public certain information, including, among other things, pricing data for electricity, on a single Internet Web page. The bill would require a load-serving entity to provide pricing data electronically to either the PUC or Energy Commission, as provided, within 3 months after a change in its rates. Because this bill would increase the duties of a local publicly owned electric utility, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require the Independent System Operator to make available electronically to the public certain information regarding the operation of the transmission grid. The bill would require the Energy Commission to publish public weather-normalized electric and natural gas usage data, as provided. The bill would require the Energy Commission, by January 1, 2019, to develop a system for assigning a global unique identifier for buildings within the state. The bill would require retail sellers of electricity and local publicly owned electric utilities to track the electricity usage data for buildings within their service territories by the global unique identifier. Because this bill would impose additional duties on local publicly owned electric utilities, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime.

Because the above provision amends the Public Utilities Act, a violation of which would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

Existing law requires each utility to maintain records of the energy usage data of all buildings to which they provide service for at least the most recent 12 complete calendar months. Existing law requires the utility, upon the request and written authorization of the owner, owner’s agent, or operator of a nonresidential building or building with 5 or more active utility accounts, to provide aggregate energy usage data for the building to the owner, owner’s agent, or operator, or to the owner’s account in the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.

This bill would require utilities to make unit-specific electricity usage data available to the building owner, owner’s agent, building operator, or to the owner’s account in the ENERGY STAR Portfolio manager. The bill would require the Energy Commission, in collaboration with the Department of General Services, by July 1, 2018, to establish, for certain buildings owned or leased by the state, a schedule and protocol for the disclosure of the buildings’ energy benchmarking information and for the labeling of those buildings with that information. The bill would require, by January 1, 2019, those buildings to publicly display the energy benchmarking information on a label placed in a prominent location in or on the building.

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 specified reasons.

Digest Key

Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: NOYES   Local Program: NOYES  

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Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(1) California has set a goal of generation at 33 percent of total retail sales of electricity in the state from eligible renewable energy resources by December 31, 2020, and 50 percent by December 31, 2030.

(2) California has also set a goal of doubling the energy efficiency of the state’s buildings by 2030.

(3) Data about the needs and constraints of the electricity grid and on energy use in different regions of California can help inform policies in support of these energy goals and help producers and users of energy serve the needs of the grid at the least cost to consumers.

(4) The electricity grid is a public good built by public investment. Broad industry participation in the management of the grid improves grid design, driving a cleaner, more efficient, reliable, and cost-effective grid.

(5) Data access improves customers’ ability to make informed decisions about their energy management.

(6) Transparency increases accountability for all industry participants and helps all parties in the market make informed decisions about when, where, and how to provide electricity in a way that reduces the need to build additional powerplants and transmission lines, resulting in lower costs for the ratepayer.

(7) Data transparency increases the pace and degree of innovation, economic development, and job growth resulting in new technologies that can lower the cost of renewable energy integration into the grid and lower costs for ratepayers in meeting the state’s energy goals.

(8) Expanding access to building-specific energy use data will aid the state in meeting its energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other goals.

(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to require maximum transparency and public review of technical data and analysis surrounding state regulations, the operation of the electric distribution grid by large electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities, and the operation of the transmission grid by the Independent System Operator.

SEC. 2.

 Section 25402.10 of the Public Resources Code is amended to read:

25402.10.

 (a) For the purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:

(1) “Benchmark” means to obtain information on the energy use in an entire building for a specific period to enable that usage to be tracked or compared against other buildings.

(2) “Covered building” for purposes of this section means either or both of the following:

(A) Any building with no residential utility accounts.

(B) Any building with five or more active utility accounts, residential or nonresidential.

(3) “Energy” means electricity, natural gas, steam, or fuel oil sold by a utility to a customer for end uses addressed by the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager system.

(4) “ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager” means the tool developed and maintained by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to track and assess the energy performance of buildings.

(b) On and after January 1, 2016, each utility shall maintain records of the energy usage data of all buildings to which they provide service for at least the most recent 12 complete calendar months.

(c) (1) Subject to the requirements of paragraph (2), beginning no later than January 1, 2017, each utility shall, upon the request and written authorization or secure electronic authorization of the owner, owner’s agent, or operator of a covered building, deliver or otherwise provide aggregated energy usage data for a covered building to the owner, owner’s agent, building operator, or to the owner’s account in the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. The commission may specify additional information to be delivered by utilities to enable building owners to complete benchmarking of the energy use in their buildings and in other systems or formats for information delivery and automation.

(2) The delivery of information by utilities pursuant to this section shall be subject to the following requirements:

(A) For covered buildings with three or more active utility accounts, each utility shall deliver information showing the aggregated energy usage data of all utility customers in the same building for each of the 12 prior months. Notwithstanding any other law, energy usage data aggregated in this manner shall not be deemed customer utility usage information or confidential information by the utility for purposes of delivery to the owner, owner’s agent, or operator of a building. The building owner and utility shall not have any liability for any use or disclosure of aggregated energy usage data delivered as required by this section.

(B) For covered buildings not subject to subparagraph (A), each utility shall deliver the information showing the aggregated energy usage data of all utility customers in the same building for each of the prior 12 months if the accountholder provides written or electronic consent for the delivery of the accountholder’s energy usage data to the owner, owner’s agent, operator, or utility.

(C) For all covered buildings, the utility shall make unit-specific electricity usage data available to the building owner, the owner’s agent, the building operator, or the building owner’s account in the United States Environmental Protection Agency ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. The data shall be provided for the purpose of informing the actions of the building owner, owner’s agent, or building operator in meeting the energy efficiency standards.

(C)

(D) Each utility shall deliver, upload, or otherwise provide aggregated energy usage data within four weeks of receiving a request from an owner, owner’s agent, or operator of a covered building.

(D)

(E) Each utility shall make available the covered building energy usage data aggregated at a monthly level unless otherwise specified by the commission.

(E)

(F) The building owner and utility shall not have any liability for any use or disclosure by others of usage information delivered as required by this section.

(d) The commission shall adopt regulations providing for the delivery to the commission and public disclosure of benchmarking of energy use for covered buildings, as follows:

(1) This subdivision shall not require the owner of a building with 16 or fewer residential utility accounts to collect or deliver energy usage information to the commission.

(2) The commission may do, but is not limited to doing, all of the following in regulations adopted pursuant to this subdivision:

(A) Identify and provide for the collection of the energy usage data for the calculation of benchmarking of energy use.

(B) Identify and provide for the collection of the covered building characteristic information deemed necessary by the commission for the calculation of benchmarking of energy use.

(C) Specify the manner in which certain benchmarking of energy use shall be publicly disclosed.

(D) Determine which covered buildings, in addition to those described in paragraph (1), are not subject to the public disclosure requirement.

(E) Set a schedule to implement the requirements for public disclosure adopted by the commission.

(F) Determine if compliance with a local or county benchmarking program fulfills the commission’s requirements adopted pursuant to this subdivision.

(G) Identify categories of information it receives pursuant to this section that are protected from release under either the California Public Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code) or the Information Practices Act of 1977 (Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 1798) of Title 1.8 of Part 4 of Division 3 of the Civil Code).

(3) The commission shall determine who will deliver the energy usage data and related information for any covered building to the commission.

(e) The commission may ensure timely and accurate compliance with the data submission requirements of this section by using the enforcement measures identified in Section 25321. An owner of a covered building, or its agents or operators, shall not be liable for any noncompliance due to the failure of a utility to provide the information required for compliance.

(f) For buildings that are not covered buildings, and for customer information that is not aggregated pursuant to subparagraph (A) of paragraph (2) of subdivision (c), the commission may adopt regulations prescribing how utilities shall either obtain the customer’s permission or determine that a building owner has obtained the customer’s permission, for the owner to receive aggregated energy usage data or, where applicable, individual customer usage information, including by use of electronic authorization and in a lease agreement between the owner and the customer.

(g) The reasonable costs of an electrical or gas corporation in delivering electrical or gas usage data pursuant to this section or other information as required under state or federal law or by an order of the commission shall be recoverable in rates evaluated and approved by the Public Utilities Commission.

(h) The reasonable costs of local publicly owned electric utilities in disclosing electrical usage data pursuant to this section may be considered “cost-effective demand-side management services to promote energy efficiency and energy conservation” and thereby reimbursable by their general fund.

(i) Nothing in this section shall prevent a city or county from establishing its own benchmarking program requiring collection, delivery, and disclosure of building information.

SEC. 3.

 Section 25402.13 is added to the Public Resources Code, to read:

25402.13.

 (a) (1) By January 1, 2019, all buildings owned by the state with more than 50,000 square feet of interior floor space shall publicly display their energy benchmarking information, as reported to the commission pursuant to Section 25402.10, on a label placed in a prominent location in or on the building.

(2) Any new lease or renewal of lease entered into by the state on or after January 1, 2018, for a building with more than 50,000 square feet of interior floor space shall require public disclosure, as specified in paragraph (1).

(b) By July 1, 2018, the commission, in collaboration with the Department of General Services, shall establish a schedule and protocols for the disclosure of benchmarking information and labeling of buildings and shall adopt procedures for addressing disputes with regards to the information for the labels for individual buildings.

(c) The commission, in consultation with the Department of General Services, may establish different benchmarking and labeling approaches as pilot programs and shall adopt a common approach for exclusive use for benchmarking and labeling on and after January 1, 2021.

SEC. 4.

 Section 25402.14 is added to the Public Resources Code, to read:

25402.14.

 (a) To facilitate the tracking of electricity usage data of buildings in the state, on or before January 1, 2019, the commission shall establish a system for assigning a global unique identifier for each building in the state based on the building’s footprint using geographic information systems.

(b) By January 1, 2020, each retail seller, as defined in Section 399.12 of the Public Utilities Code, and local publicly owned electric utility, as defined in Section 224.3 of the Public Utilities Code, shall track the electricity usage data for buildings within its service territory by the global unique identifier assigned to the building.

SEC. 5.

 Section 323.7 is added to the Public Utilities Code, to read:

323.7.

 (a) On or before June 1, 2018, the commission shall, jointly with the Energy Commission, make capacity, transmission, and pricing data for electricity available electronically to the public, in a consistent, machine-readable format, with clearly labeled variables, on a single Internet Web page. The data shall include, but is not limited to, all of the following:

(1) Energy generation data submitted to the commission and the Energy Commission as a part of the integrated resource planning process.

(2) A regional description of grid needs, including capacity, reactive power, voltage reliability, and resiliency requirements.

(3) Loading data.

(4) Voltage profile data.

(5) A digital representation of constraints on utility distribution circuits for all circuits and circuit models, defined as a digital representation of the key attributes of a utility distribution circuit that are necessary to perform power flow and hosting capacity analyses.

(6) Time series data of distribution circuit and node loading.

(7) Existing installed distributed energy resources by type and capacity.

(8) Assumptions used in forecasting energy resource needs.

(9) Equipment ratings and settings that include all of the following:

(A) Thermal ratings for transformers and conductors.

(B) Ratings of voltage regulating equipment by location to inform the ability of the circuit to manage voltage fluctuations.

(C) Ratings and settings of protection equipment to inform the typical operational characteristics of individual circuits.

(10) (A) The price charged by a load-serving entity for electricity in each Zip Code.

(B) (i) A load serving entity that is not a local publicly owned electric utility shall provide this data on pricing electronically to the commission.

(ii) A local publicly owned electric utility shall provide this data on pricing electronically to the Energy Commission.

(C) This pricing data shall be updated within three months after a load-serving entity changes its rates.

(b) On or before June 1, 2018, the Independent System Operator shall make demand, pricing, and trading information available electronically to the public, in a consistent, machine-readable format, with clearly labeled variables, on a single Internet Web page on its Internet Web site. This information shall include, but is not limited to, all of the following:

(1) Day-ahead and spot-market pricing.

(2) Data on the amount of overgeneration and on generation constraints, by location.

(3) Assumptions in forecasting energy needs.

(4) Historical and forecasted demand, statewide and by subregions.

(5) Capacity and ancillary service needs of the statewide and regional grid throughout the year.

(c) On or before June 1, 2018, the Energy Commission shall publish weather-normalized electrical and natural gas usage data, anonymized by geography and customer type to protect customer privacy, in a machine-readable, electronic format. The data shall be made available to the public on a monthly and hourly usage basis and shall by provided in the following two data sets:

(1) Anonymized geographically by Zip Code or census track.

(2) Anonymized by customer type, including, but not limited to, schools, commercial buildings categorized by size, multifamily residential building categorized by size, and single-family residential buildings categorized by size.

(d) The commission and the Energy Commission shall adopt appropriate mechanisms for information submitted pursuant to this section to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the customers.

(e) This section does not apply to data that are required to be kept confidential by law.

SEC. 6.

 No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because a local agency or school district has the authority to levy service charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or level of service mandated by this act or because 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.

SECTION 1.Section 1 of Chapter 469 of the Statutes of 2010 is amended to read:

Section 1.

The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a)Expanding the use of energy storage systems can help electrical corporations, electric service providers, community choice aggregators, and local publicly owned electric utilities in integrating increased amounts of renewable energy resources into the electrical transmission and distribution grid in a manner that minimizes emissions of greenhouse gases.

(b)Additional energy storage systems can optimize the use of the significant additional amounts of variable, intermittent, and offpeak electrical generation from wind and solar energy that will be entering the California power mix on an accelerated basis.

(c)Expanded use of energy storage systems can reduce costs to ratepayers by avoiding or deferring the need for new fossil fuel-powered peaking powerplants and avoiding or deferring distribution and transmission system upgrades and expansion of the grid.

(d)Expanded use of energy storage systems will reduce the use of electricity generated from fossil fuels to meet peak load requirements on days with high electricity demand and can avoid or reduce the use of electricity generated by high carbon-emitting electrical generating facilities during those high electricity demand periods. This will have substantial cobenefits from reduced emissions of criteria pollutants.

(e)Use of energy storage systems to provide the ancillary services otherwise provided by fossil-fueled generating facilities will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and criteria pollutants.

(f)There are significant barriers to obtaining the benefits of energy storage systems, including inadequate evaluation of the use of energy storage to integrate renewable energy resources into the transmission and distribution grid through long-term electricity resource planning, lack of recognition of technological and marketplace advancements, and inadequate statutory and regulatory support.