Bill Text: IL SB0648 | 2013-2014 | 98th General Assembly | Introduced

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

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Bill Title: Amends the Public Utilities Act. Makes a technical change in a Section concerning recovery of costs associated with the provision of delivery services.

Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2014-05-21 - Tabled [SB0648 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2013-SB0648-Introduced.html

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98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY State of Illinois 2013 and 2014 SB0648 Introduced 1/24/2013, by Sen. John J. Cullerton SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:
220 ILCS 5/16-108
Amends the Public Utilities Act. Makes a technical change in a Section concerning recovery of costs associated with the provision of delivery services.
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A BILL FOR
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AN ACT concerning regulation.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The Public Utilities Act is amended by changing
Section 16-108 as follows:
(220 ILCS 5/16-108)
Sec. 16-108. Recovery of costs associated with the the
provision of delivery services.
(a) An electric utility shall file a delivery services
tariff with the Commission at least 210 days prior to the date
that it is required to begin offering such services pursuant to
this Act. An electric utility shall provide the components of
delivery services that are subject to the jurisdiction of the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the same prices, terms
and conditions set forth in its applicable tariff as approved
or allowed into effect by that Commission. The Commission shall
otherwise have the authority pursuant to Article IX to review,
approve, and modify the prices, terms and conditions of those
components of delivery services not subject to the jurisdiction
of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, including the
authority to determine the extent to which such delivery
services should be offered on an unbundled basis. In making any
such determination the Commission shall consider, at a minimum,

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the effect of additional unbundling on (i) the objective of
just and reasonable rates, (ii) electric utility employees, and
(iii) the development of competitive markets for electric
energy services in Illinois.
(b) The Commission shall enter an order approving, or
approving as modified, the delivery services tariff no later
than 30 days prior to the date on which the electric utility
must commence offering such services. The Commission may
subsequently modify such tariff pursuant to this Act.
(c) The electric utility's tariffs shall define the classes
of its customers for purposes of delivery services charges.
Delivery services shall be priced and made available to all
retail customers electing delivery services in each such class
on a nondiscriminatory basis regardless of whether the retail
customer chooses the electric utility, an affiliate of the
electric utility, or another entity as its supplier of electric
power and energy. Charges for delivery services shall be cost
based, and shall allow the electric utility to recover the
costs of providing delivery services through its charges to its
delivery service customers that use the facilities and services
associated with such costs. Such costs shall include the costs
of owning, operating and maintaining transmission and
distribution facilities. The Commission shall also be
authorized to consider whether, and if so to what extent, the
following costs are appropriately included in the electric
utility's delivery services rates: (i) the costs of that

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portion of generation facilities used for the production and
absorption of reactive power in order that retail customers
located in the electric utility's service area can receive
electric power and energy from suppliers other than the
electric utility, and (ii) the costs associated with the use
and redispatch of generation facilities to mitigate
constraints on the transmission or distribution system in order
that retail customers located in the electric utility's service
area can receive electric power and energy from suppliers other
than the electric utility. Nothing in this subsection shall be
construed as directing the Commission to allocate any of the
costs described in (i) or (ii) that are found to be
appropriately included in the electric utility's delivery
services rates to any particular customer group or geographic
area in setting delivery services rates.
(d) The Commission shall establish charges, terms and
conditions for delivery services that are just and reasonable
and shall take into account customer impacts when establishing
such charges. In establishing charges, terms and conditions for
delivery services, the Commission shall take into account
voltage level differences. A retail customer shall have the
option to request to purchase electric service at any delivery
service voltage reasonably and technically feasible from the
electric facilities serving that customer's premises provided
that there are no significant adverse impacts upon system
reliability or system efficiency. A retail customer shall also

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have the option to request to purchase electric service at any
point of delivery that is reasonably and technically feasible
provided that there are no significant adverse impacts on
system reliability or efficiency. Such requests shall not be
unreasonably denied.
(e) Electric utilities shall recover the costs of
installing, operating or maintaining facilities for the
particular benefit of one or more delivery services customers,
including without limitation any costs incurred in complying
with a customer's request to be served at a different voltage
level, directly from the retail customer or customers for whose
benefit the costs were incurred, to the extent such costs are
not recovered through the charges referred to in subsections
(c) and (d) of this Section.
(f) An electric utility shall be entitled but not required
to implement transition charges in conjunction with the
offering of delivery services pursuant to Section 16-104. If an
electric utility implements transition charges, it shall
implement such charges for all delivery services customers and
for all customers described in subsection (h), but shall not
implement transition charges for power and energy that a retail
customer takes from cogeneration or self-generation facilities
located on that retail customer's premises, if such facilities
meet the following criteria:
(i) the cogeneration or self-generation facilities
serve a single retail customer and are located on that

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retail customer's premises (for purposes of this
subparagraph and subparagraph (ii), an industrial or
manufacturing retail customer and a third party contractor
that is served by such industrial or manufacturing customer
through such retail customer's own electrical distribution
facilities under the circumstances described in subsection
(vi) of the definition of "alternative retail electric
supplier" set forth in Section 16-102, shall be considered
a single retail customer);
(ii) the cogeneration or self-generation facilities
either (A) are sized pursuant to generally accepted
engineering standards for the retail customer's electrical
load at that premises (taking into account standby or other
reliability considerations related to that retail
customer's operations at that site) or (B) if the facility
is a cogeneration facility located on the retail customer's
premises, the retail customer is the thermal host for that
facility and the facility has been designed to meet that
retail customer's thermal energy requirements resulting in
electrical output beyond that retail customer's electrical
demand at that premises, comply with the operating and
efficiency standards applicable to "qualifying facilities"
specified in title 18 Code of Federal Regulations Section
292.205 as in effect on the effective date of this
amendatory Act of 1999;
(iii) the retail customer on whose premises the

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facilities are located either has an exclusive right to
receive, and corresponding obligation to pay for, all of
the electrical capacity of the facility, or in the case of
a cogeneration facility that has been designed to meet the
retail customer's thermal energy requirements at that
premises, an identified amount of the electrical capacity
of the facility, over a minimum 5-year period; and
(iv) if the cogeneration facility is sized for the
retail customer's thermal load at that premises but exceeds
the electrical load, any sales of excess power or energy
are made only at wholesale, are subject to the jurisdiction
of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and are not
for the purpose of circumventing the provisions of this
subsection (f).
If a generation facility located at a retail customer's
premises does not meet the above criteria, an electric utility
implementing transition charges shall implement a transition
charge until December 31, 2006 for any power and energy taken
by such retail customer from such facility as if such power and
energy had been delivered by the electric utility. Provided,
however, that an industrial retail customer that is taking
power from a generation facility that does not meet the above
criteria but that is located on such customer's premises will
not be subject to a transition charge for the power and energy
taken by such retail customer from such generation facility if
the facility does not serve any other retail customer and

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either was installed on behalf of the customer and for its own
use prior to January 1, 1997, or is both predominantly fueled
by byproducts of such customer's manufacturing process at such
premises and sells or offers an average of 300 megawatts or
more of electricity produced from such generation facility into
the wholesale market. Such charges shall be calculated as
provided in Section 16-102, and shall be collected on each
kilowatt-hour delivered under a delivery services tariff to a
retail customer from the date the customer first takes delivery
services until December 31, 2006 except as provided in
subsection (h) of this Section. Provided, however, that an
electric utility, other than an electric utility providing
service to at least 1,000,000 customers in this State on
January 1, 1999, shall be entitled to petition for entry of an
order by the Commission authorizing the electric utility to
implement transition charges for an additional period ending no
later than December 31, 2008. The electric utility shall file
its petition with supporting evidence no earlier than 16
months, and no later than 12 months, prior to December 31,
2006. The Commission shall hold a hearing on the electric
utility's petition and shall enter its order no later than 8
months after the petition is filed. The Commission shall
determine whether and to what extent the electric utility shall
be authorized to implement transition charges for an additional
period. The Commission may authorize the electric utility to
implement transition charges for some or all of the additional

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period, and shall determine the mitigation factors to be used
in implementing such transition charges; provided, that the
Commission shall not authorize mitigation factors less than
110% of those in effect during the 12 months ended December 31,
2006. In making its determination, the Commission shall
consider the following factors: the necessity to implement
transition charges for an additional period in order to
maintain the financial integrity of the electric utility; the
prudence of the electric utility's actions in reducing its
costs since the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1997;
the ability of the electric utility to provide safe, adequate
and reliable service to retail customers in its service area;
and the impact on competition of allowing the electric utility
to implement transition charges for the additional period.
(g) The electric utility shall file tariffs that establish
the transition charges to be paid by each class of customers to
the electric utility in conjunction with the provision of
delivery services. The electric utility's tariffs shall define
the classes of its customers for purposes of calculating
transition charges. The electric utility's tariffs shall
provide for the calculation of transition charges on a
customer-specific basis for any retail customer whose average
monthly maximum electrical demand on the electric utility's
system during the 6 months with the customer's highest monthly
maximum electrical demands equals or exceeds 3.0 megawatts for
electric utilities having more than 1,000,000 customers, and

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for other electric utilities for any customer that has an
average monthly maximum electrical demand on the electric
utility's system of one megawatt or more, and (A) for which
there exists data on the customer's usage during the 3 years
preceding the date that the customer became eligible to take
delivery services, or (B) for which there does not exist data
on the customer's usage during the 3 years preceding the date
that the customer became eligible to take delivery services, if
in the electric utility's reasonable judgment there exists
comparable usage information or a sufficient basis to develop
such information, and further provided that the electric
utility can require customers for which an individual
calculation is made to sign contracts that set forth the
transition charges to be paid by the customer to the electric
utility pursuant to the tariff.
(h) An electric utility shall also be entitled to file
tariffs that allow it to collect transition charges from retail
customers in the electric utility's service area that do not
take delivery services but that take electric power or energy
from an alternative retail electric supplier or from an
electric utility other than the electric utility in whose
service area the customer is located. Such charges shall be
calculated, in accordance with the definition of transition
charges in Section 16-102, for the period of time that the
customer would be obligated to pay transition charges if it
were taking delivery services, except that no deduction for

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delivery services revenues shall be made in such calculation,
and usage data from the customer's class shall be used where
historical usage data is not available for the individual
customer. The customer shall be obligated to pay such charges
on a lump sum basis on or before the date on which the customer
commences to take service from the alternative retail electric
supplier or other electric utility, provided, that the electric
utility in whose service area the customer is located shall
offer the customer the option of signing a contract pursuant to
which the customer pays such charges ratably over the period in
which the charges would otherwise have applied.
(i) An electric utility shall be entitled to add to the
bills of delivery services customers charges pursuant to
Sections 9-221, 9-222 (except as provided in Section 9-222.1),
and Section 16-114 of this Act, Section 5-5 of the Electricity
Infrastructure Maintenance Fee Law, Section 6-5 of the
Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, and Coal Resources
Development Law of 1997, and Section 13 of the Energy
Assistance Act.
(j) If a retail customer that obtains electric power and
energy from cogeneration or self-generation facilities
installed for its own use on or before January 1, 1997,
subsequently takes service from an alternative retail electric
supplier or an electric utility other than the electric utility
in whose service area the customer is located for any portion
of the customer's electric power and energy requirements

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formerly obtained from those facilities (including that amount
purchased from the utility in lieu of such generation and not
as standby power purchases, under a cogeneration displacement
tariff in effect as of the effective date of this amendatory
Act of 1997), the transition charges otherwise applicable
pursuant to subsections (f), (g), or (h) of this Section shall
not be applicable in any year to that portion of the customer's
electric power and energy requirements formerly obtained from
those facilities, provided, that for purposes of this
subsection (j), such portion shall not exceed the average
number of kilowatt-hours per year obtained from the
cogeneration or self-generation facilities during the 3 years
prior to the date on which the customer became eligible for
delivery services, except as provided in subsection (f) of
Section 16-110.
(Source: P.A. 91-50, eff. 6-30-99; 92-690, eff. 7-18-02.)