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AB-463 Electricity: prioritization of service: public transit vehicles.(2023-2024)

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Date Published: 02/06/2023 09:00 PM
AB463:v99#DOCUMENT


CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill
No. 463

Introduced by Assembly Member Hart

February 06, 2023

An act to amend Sections 2772 and 8386 of the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


AB 463, as introduced, Hart. Electricity: prioritization of service: public transit vehicles.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations. Existing law requires the commission to establish priorities among the types or categories of customers of every electrical corporation and every gas corporation, and among the uses of electricity or gas by those customers, to determine which of those customers and uses provide the most important public benefits and serve the greatest public need, and to categorize all other customers and uses in order of descending priority based on these standards. Existing law requires the commission, in establishing those priorities, to consider, among other things, the economic, social, and other effects of a temporary discontinuance in electrical or gas service to certain customers or for certain uses, as specified. If an electrical or gas corporation experiences a shortage of capacity or capability and is unable to meet all demands by its customers, existing law requires the commission to order that service be temporarily reduced by an amount that reflects the established priorities for the duration of the shortage.
This bill would require the commission, in establishing those priorities, to also consider the economic, social equity, and mobility impacts of a temporary discontinuance in electrical service to the customers that rely on electrical service to operate public transit vehicles.
Existing law requires each electrical corporation to annually prepare and submit a wildfire mitigation plan to the Wildfire Safety Division for review and approval. The California Energy Infrastructure Safety Act establishes the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety within the Natural Resources Agency, and provides that, on and after July 1, 2021, the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety is the successor to, and is vested with, all of the duties, powers, and responsibilities of the Wildfire Safety Division of the commission. Existing law requires that each wildfire mitigation plan include, among other things, the electrical corporation’s protocols for disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the associated impacts on public safety, including related to mitigating those public safety impacts on critical first responders, health and communication infrastructure, and customers who receive medical baseline allowances.
This bill would require that those protocols also include protocols related to mitigating those public safety impacts on public transit vehicle charging infrastructure.
Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime.
Because the violation of a commission action implementing some of this bill’s requirements would be a crime, 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 a specified reason.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: YES  

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


SECTION 1.

 Section 2772 of the Public Utilities Code is amended to read:

2772.
 In establishing the priorities pursuant to Section 2771, the commission shall include, but not be limited to, a consideration of all the following:
(a) A determination of the customers and uses of electricity and gas, in descending order of priority, that provide the most important public benefits and serve the greatest public need.
(b) A determination of the customers and uses of electricity and gas that are not included under subdivision (a).
(c) A determination of the economic, social, and other effects of a temporary discontinuance in electrical or gas service to the customers or for the uses determined in accordance with subdivision (a) or (b).
(d) A determination of the economic, social equity, and mobility impacts of a temporary discontinuance in electrical service to the customers that rely on electrical service to operate public transit vehicles.

(d)

(e) A determination of the potential effect of extreme temperatures on the health and safety of residential customers. In making this determination, the commission shall do all of the following:
(1) Consult with appropriate medical experts and review appropriate literature and research.
(2) Consider whether providing priority to customers experiencing extreme temperatures would result in increased outage frequency and duration for remaining customers and its effect on the health and safety of those remaining customers.
(3) To the extent the commission determines it is in the public interest to provide priority to customers that experience extreme temperatures, it shall provide that priority only when temperatures are extreme.
(4) Consider whether alternative measures are appropriate, including, but not limited to, reducing the duration of the outage or imposing the outage earlier or later in the day.

(e)

(f) A determination of unacceptable jeopardy or imminent danger to public health and safety that creates substantial likelihood of severe health risk requiring medical attention.

(f)

(g) Any curtailment or allocation rules, orders, or regulations issued by any agency of the federal government.

(g)The commission shall also consider the

(h) The effect of providing a high priority to some customers on those customers who do not receive a high priority.

SEC. 2.

 Section 8386 of the Public Utilities Code is amended to read:

8386.
 (a) Each electrical corporation shall construct, maintain, and operate its electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by those electrical lines and equipment.
(b) Each electrical corporation shall annually prepare and submit a wildfire mitigation plan to the Wildfire Safety Division office for review and approval. In calendar year 2020, and thereafter, the plan shall cover at least a three-year period. The division office shall establish a schedule for the submission of subsequent comprehensive wildfire mitigation plans, which may allow for the staggering of compliance periods for each electrical corporation. In its discretion, the division office may allow the annual submissions to be updates to the last approved comprehensive wildfire mitigation plan; provided, that each electrical corporation shall submit a comprehensive wildfire mitigation plan at least once every three years.
(c) The wildfire mitigation plan shall include all of the following:
(1) An accounting of the responsibilities of persons responsible for executing the plan.
(2) The objectives of the plan.
(3) A description of the preventive strategies and programs to be adopted by the electrical corporation to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, including consideration of dynamic climate change risks.
(4) A description of the metrics the electrical corporation plans to use to evaluate the plan’s performance and the assumptions that underlie the use of those metrics.
(5) A discussion of how the application of previously identified metrics to previous plan performances has informed the plan.
(6) A description of the electrical corporation’s protocols for disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the associated impacts on public safety. As part of these protocols, each electrical corporation shall include protocols related to mitigating the public safety impacts of disabling reclosers and deenergizing portions of the electrical distribution system that consider the impacts on all of the following:
(A) Critical first responders.
(B) Health and communication Health, communication, and public transit vehicle charging infrastructure.
(C) Customers who receive medical baseline allowances pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 739. The electrical corporation may deploy backup electrical resources or provide financial assistance for backup electrical resources to a customer receiving a medical baseline allowance for a customer who meets all of the following requirements:
(i) The customer relies on life-support equipment that operates on electricity to sustain life.
(ii) The customer demonstrates financial need, including through enrollment in the California Alternate Rates for Energy program continued pursuant to Section 739.1.
(iii) The customer is not eligible for backup electrical resources provided through medical services, medical insurance, or community resources.
(D) Subparagraph (C) shall not be construed as preventing does not prevent an electrical corporation from deploying backup electrical resources or providing financial assistance for backup electrical resources under any other authority.
(7) A description of the electrical corporation’s appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines, including procedures for those customers receiving medical baseline allowances as described in paragraph (6). The procedures shall direct notification to all public safety offices, critical first responders, health care facilities, and operators of telecommunications infrastructure with premises within the footprint of potential deenergization for a given event. The procedures shall comply with any orders of the commission regarding notifications of deenergization events.
(8) Identification of circuits that have frequently been deenergized pursuant to a deenergization event to mitigate the risk of wildfire and the measures taken, or planned to be taken, by the electrical corporation to reduce the need for, and impact of, future deenergization of those circuits, including, but not limited to, the estimated annual decline in circuit deenergization and deenergization impact on customers, and replacing, hardening, or undergrounding any portion of the circuit or of upstream transmission or distribution lines.
(9) Plans for vegetation management.
(10) Plans for inspections of the electrical corporation’s electrical infrastructure.
(11) A description of the electrical corporation’s protocols for the deenergization of the electrical corporation’s transmission infrastructure, for instances when the deenergization may impact customers who, or entities that, are dependent upon the infrastructure. The protocols shall comply with any order of the commission regarding deenergization events.
(12) A list that identifies, describes, and prioritizes all wildfire risks, and drivers for those risks, throughout the electrical corporation’s service territory, including all relevant wildfire risk and risk mitigation information that is part of the commission’s Safety Model Assessment Proceeding (A.15-05-002, et al.) and the Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase filings. The list shall include, but not be limited to, both of the following:
(A) Risks and risk drivers associated with design, construction, operations, and maintenance of the electrical corporation’s equipment and facilities.
(B) Particular risks and risk drivers associated with topographic and climatological risk factors throughout the different parts of the electrical corporation’s service territory.
(13) A description of how the plan accounts for the wildfire risk identified in the electrical corporation’s Risk Assessment Mitigation Phase filing.
(14) A description of the actions the electrical corporation will take to ensure its system will achieve the highest level of safety, reliability, and resiliency, and to ensure that its system is prepared for a major event, including hardening and modernizing its infrastructure with improved engineering, system design, standards, equipment, and facilities, such as undergrounding, insulating of distribution wires, and replacing poles.
(15) A description of where and how the electrical corporation considered undergrounding electrical distribution lines within those areas of its service territory identified to have the highest wildfire risk in a commission fire threat map.
(16) A showing that the electrical corporation has an adequately sized and trained workforce to promptly restore service after a major event, taking into account employees of other utilities pursuant to mutual aid agreements and employees of entities that have entered into contracts with the electrical corporation.
(17) Identification of any geographic area in the electrical corporation’s service territory that is a higher wildfire threat than is currently identified in a commission fire threat map, and where the commission should consider expanding the high fire threat district based on new information or changes in the environment.
(18) A methodology for identifying and presenting enterprisewide safety risk and wildfire-related risk that is consistent with the methodology used by other electrical corporations unless the commission determines otherwise.
(19) A description of how the plan is consistent with the electrical corporation’s disaster and emergency preparedness plan prepared pursuant to Section 768.6, including both of the following:
(A) Plans to prepare for, and to restore service after, a wildfire, including workforce mobilization and prepositioning equipment and employees.
(B) Plans for community outreach and public awareness before, during, and after a wildfire, including language notification in English, Spanish, and the top three primary languages used in the state other than English or Spanish, as determined by the commission based on the United States Census data.
(20) A statement of how the electrical corporation will restore service after a wildfire.
(21) Protocols for compliance with requirements adopted by the commission regarding activities to support customers during and after a wildfire, outage reporting, support for low-income customers, billing adjustments, deposit waivers, extended payment plans, suspension of disconnection and nonpayment fees, repair processing and timing, access to electrical corporation representatives, and emergency communications.
(22) A description of the processes and procedures the electrical corporation will use to do all of the following:
(A) Monitor and audit the implementation of the plan.
(B) Identify any deficiencies in the plan or the plan’s implementation and correct those deficiencies.
(C) Monitor and audit the effectiveness of electrical line and equipment inspections, including inspections performed by contractors, carried out under the plan and other applicable statutes and commission rules.
(23) Any other information that the Wildfire Safety Division office may require.
(d) The Wildfire Safety Division office shall post all wildfire mitigation plans and annual updates on the commission’s internet website before July 1, 2021, and on the office’s its internet website beginning July 1, 2021, for no less than two months before the division’s or office’s decision regarding approval of the plan. The division or office shall accept comments on each plan from the public, other local and state agencies, and interested parties, and verify that the plan complies with all applicable rules, regulations, and standards, as appropriate.

SEC. 3.

 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.