Bill Text: CA SB620 | 2025-2026 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Energy utility data.
Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1)
Status: (Failed) 2026-02-02 - Returned to Secretary of Senate pursuant to Joint Rule 56. [SB620 Detail]
Download: California-2025-SB620-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Senate
April 21, 2025 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Bill
No. 620
| Introduced by Senator Stern |
February 20, 2025 |
An act to add Section 451.10 25234 to the Public Resources Code, and to add Section 8382 to the Public Utilities Code, relating to public utilities. energy.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 620, as amended, Stern.
Public utilities: general rate cases: electrical grid infrastructure. Energy utility data.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations, while local publicly owned utilities are under the direction of their governing boards. Existing law prohibits an electrical corporation, gas corporation, or local publicly owned electric utility from sharing, disclosing, or otherwise making accessible to any third party a customer’s electrical or gas consumption data, as defined, except as specified.
This bill would require the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to create the Data Access Governance Committee, with specified membership, and would require the committee, on or before January 1, 2027, to
provide initial recommendations on prescribed topics to the Energy Commission and the PUC, as specified. The bill would authorize the Energy Commission to work with certain gas corporations, electrical corporations, and local publicly owned utilities that provide gas or electrical service to enact cost-effective energy utility data programs, as specified. The bill would create, and would require the PUC and the Energy Commission to administer and enforce, the Customer Energy Utility Data Bill of Rights, with specified protections and customer rights.
Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime.
Because a violation of a PUC action implementing the requirements of this bill would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
In addition, to the extent the bill would impose new requirements on local publicly owned utilities, the 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 specified reasons.
Existing law authorizes the Public Utilities Commission to fix the rates and charges for public utilities and requires those rates and charges to be just and reasonable.
This bill would require the commission to prioritize the gathering, analysis, and independent verification of utility data used to justify general rate case proposals to ensure the cost-effective use of ratepayer funds for capital investments in electrical distribution and transmission grid infrastructure and the operation and maintenance of that infrastructure.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program:Bill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
Section 25234 is added to the Public Resources Code, to read:25234.
(a) The commission shall create the Data Access Governance Committee, which shall comprise, at minimum, all of the following members and shall not exceed 12 members:(1) One representative of energy utilities.
(2) One consumer advocate.
(3) One representative of disadvantaged communities, as defined in Section 79505.5 of the Water Code.
(4) One representative of local publicly owned utilities.
(5) One representative of community choice aggregators.
(6) One representative of the distributed energy industry.
(7) One representative of labor.
(8) One representative of energy service suppliers.
(9) Two academic experts on energy utility data.
(b) The Data Access Governance Committee shall meet quarterly.
(c) The Data Access Governance Committee shall, on or before January 1, 2027, provide initial recommendations to the commission and the Public Utilities Commission on all of the following topics:
(1) Energy utility data use guidelines, including building energy benchmarking, integrating distributed energy resource
planning, grid readiness data, including hosting capacity, and reliability for preparedness.
(2) Support operations and customer service.
(3) Administration of energy utility data between third-party organizations, utilities, and customers.
(4) Energy utility data access quality, reliability, and performance.
(d) The commission may work with gas corporations, electrical corporations, and local publicly owned utilities that provide gas or electrical service, with more than 50,000 service connections in California, to enact cost-effective energy utility data programs, which may include facilitating compliance with the Customer Energy Utility Data Bill of Rights, created pursuant to Section 8382 of the Public Utilities Code, through consolidated access
platforms and tools, as appropriate.
(e) For purposes of this section, both of the following definitions apply:
(1) “Electrical corporation” has the same meaning as defined in Section 218 of the Public Utilities Code.
(2) “Gas corporation” has the same meaning as defined in Section 222 of the Public Utilities Code.
SEC. 2.
Section 8382 is added to the Public Utilities Code, to read:8382.
(a) The Customer Energy Utility Data Bill of Rights is hereby created, to be administered and enforced by the commission and the Energy Commission.(b) The Customer Energy Utility Data Bill of Rights shall include all of the following rights:
(1) Data disclosure protections consistent with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (Title 1.81.5 (commencing with Section 1798.100) of Part 4 of Division 3 of the Civil Code).
(2) The right of customers to own their energy utility data, including data used to calculate charges for service, historical and real-time load data, and any other proprietary customer
information, as feasible.
(3) The right to have customer energy utility data securely maintained.
(4) The right of customers to share their energy utility data with third parties of their choice on a one-time or ongoing basis in a consistent, secure, and useful way.
(5) The right of customers to be informed when their energy utility data is shared with third parties and to receive appropriate opt-out notices.
(6) The right of customers to manage access to their meter data without requiring the use of online accounts with their energy utilities.
(7) The right of customers to see their historic energy utility data over the past 24 months, as feasible.
(8) The right of customers to participate in demand response programs and share data through service providers of their choice, which energy utilities shall support by eliminating barriers to access, consistent with the demand response principles adopted by the commission in Decision 16-09-056 (September 29, 2016), Decision Adopting Guidance for Future Demand Response Portfolios and Modifying Decision 14-12-024.
SEC. 3.
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.The commission shall prioritize the gathering, analysis, and independent verification of utility data used to justify general rate case proposals to ensure the cost-effective use of ratepayer funds for capital investments in electrical distribution and transmission grid infrastructure and the operation and maintenance of that infrastructure.
