Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, as defined. The existing Public Utilities Act requires the CPUC to review and adopt a procurement plan for each electrical corporation in accordance with specified elements, incentive mechanisms, and objectives. The existing California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program (RPS program) requires the CPUC to implement annual procurement targets for the procurement of eligible renewable energy resources, as defined, for all retail sellers, including electrical corporations, community choice aggregators, and electric service providers, but not including local publicly owned electric utilities, to achieve the targets and goals of the program.

The existing Warren-Alquist State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Act establishes the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission), and requires it to undertake a continuing assessment of trends in the consumption of electricity and other forms of energy and to analyze the social, economic, and environmental consequences of those trends and to collect from electric utilities, gas utilities, and fuel producers and wholesalers and other sources, forecasts of future supplies and consumption of all forms of energy.

Existing law requires the CPUC, in consultation with the Independent System Operator (ISO), to establish resource adequacy requirements for all load-serving entities, as defined, in accordance with specified objectives. The definition of a “load-serving entity” excludes a local publicly owned electric utility. That law further requires each load-serving entity to maintain physical generating capacity adequate to meet its load requirements, including peak demand and planning and operating reserves, deliverable to locations and at times as may be necessary to provide reliable electric service. Other existing law requires that each local publicly owned electric utility serving end-use customers to prudently plan for and procure resources that are adequate to meet its planning reserve margin and peak demand and operating reserves, sufficient to provide reliable electric service to its customers. That law additionally requires the utility, upon request, to provide the Energy Commission with any information the Energy Commission determines is necessary to evaluate the progress made by the local publicly owned electric utility in meeting those planning requirements, and requires the Energy Commission to report the progress made by each utility to the Legislature, to be included in the integrated energy policy reports. Under existing law, the governing body of a local publicly owned electric utility is responsible for implementing and enforcing a renewables portfolio standard for the utility that recognizes the intent of the Legislature to encourage renewable resources, while taking into consideration the effect of the standard on rates, reliability, and financial resources and the goal of environmental improvement.

This bill would require the CPUC, by March 1, 2012, to open a proceeding to determine appropriate targets, if any, for each load-serving entity to procure viable and cost-effective energy storage systems and, by October 1, 2013, to adopt an energy storage system procurement target, if determined to be appropriate, to be achieved by each load-serving entity by December 31, 2015, and a 2nd target to be achieved by December 31, 2020. The bill would require the governing board of a local publicly owned electric utility, by March 1, 2012, to open a proceeding to determine appropriate targets, if any, for the utility to procure viable and cost-effective energy storage systems and, by October 1, 2014, to adopt an energy storage system procurement target, if determined to be appropriate, to be achieved by the utility by December 31, 2016, and a 2nd target to be achieved by December 31, 2021. The bill would require each load-serving entity and local publicly owned electric utility to report certain information to the CPUC, for a load-serving entity, or to the Energy Commission, for a local publicly owned electric utility. The bill would make other technical, nonsubstantive revisions to existing law. The bill would exempt from these requirements an electrical corporation that has 60,000 or fewer customers within California and a public utility district that receives all of its electricity pursuant to a preference right adopted and authorized by the United States Congress pursuant to a specified law.

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

Because certain of the provisions of this bill require action by the CPUC to implement, a violation of these provisions would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime. Because certain of the bill’s requirements are applicable to local publicly owned electric 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.