On August 19, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a proposed decision accepting the 2019 Renewables Portfolio Standard Procurement Plans submitted by four new Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs): Butte Choice Energy Authority; Clean Energy Alliance; the City of Santa Barbara; and San Diego Community Power.  Each of these CCAs is anticipated to start providing

On February 20, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)  unanimously approved a proposed rule that would revise certain reporting requirements for financially-settled offtake contracts that qualify as “swaps” under the Commodity Exchange Act (as amended by the Dodd-Frank Act), such as proxy revenue swaps, fixed-volume price swaps and certain virtual PPAs.  Many counterparties to

In a stakeholder call yesterday, the CAISO discussed the Revised Draft Final Proposal in the Generator Deliverability Assessment stakeholder initiative. During the call, the CAISO addressed outstanding stakeholder questions, including confirming key upcoming dates for project developers.

Background on the Proposal

The CAISO is proposing revisions to its deliverability assessment methodology in response to the rapid increase in the amount of solar resources and the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) resulting transition to an Effective Load Carrying Capability (ELCC) approach to calculating qualifying capacity (QC). The CAISO’s revisions are intended to more closely align the capacity studied in the deliverability assessment with the generator’s anticipated QC under the CPUC’s new ELCC methodology. Under the current deliverability assessment methodology, generators are studied at a higher capacity than the projects can qualify for under the ELCC methodology. Under the revised deliverability methodology, projects are expected to retain their full capacity deliverability status (FCDS) and their NQC value will not be reduced, but the proposed change should be beneficial to future interconnection customers because it will free up some unused deliverability and likely result in fewer required network upgrades to receive FCDS.

As part of the proposal the CAISO is also creating a new sub-status for solar and wind projects: Off-Peak Deliverability Status (OPDS). New solar and wind OPDS resources will receive market scheduling priority by continuing to be allowed to self-schedule as an incentive for resources to develop in locations that do not trigger upgrades or trigger only low-cost localized transmission upgrades.
Continue Reading CAISO Clarifies Generator Deliverability Assessment Proposal

On July 29, 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision in Winding Creek Solar LLC v. Peterman et al., ruling that California’s feed-in tariff for small qualifying facilities (QFs), the Renewable Market Adjusting Tariff (ReMAT), violates the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) (Ninth Circuit Case No. 17-17531). ReMAT provides small QFs of three megawatts (MW) or less with a standard contract for energy offtake, on a first-come, first-served basis. Under ReMAT, rates available to any given generator fluctuate based on the price the developers ahead in the contract queue will accept. The California investor-owned utilities must offer ReMAT contracts up to a program cap of 750 MW, which is proportionately split among the utilities, and then further divided across different types of generation, including baseload and peak/non-peak resources.

The Ninth Circuit ruled that ReMAT violated two tenets of PURPA. Under PURPA, subject to certain exemptions, utilities are required to buy at the avoided cost rate all the power produced by a QF. First, contrary to PURPA’s requirement that a utility buy all of a QF’s output, the Ninth Circuit found that ReMAT limits the amount of energy that utilities are required to purchase from QFs by placing caps on procurement. Second, ReMAT sets a market-based rate for energy from participating QFs, rather than a price based on the utilities’ avoided cost as required under PURPA.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Strikes Down California ReMAT in Winding Creek Solar Case

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) is accepting stakeholder comments until August 13, 2019 on its new Hybrid Resources Issue Paper, kicking off a stakeholder initiative expected to proceed until April 2020. Initial comments submitted now will help shape the direction of the initiative and potential market changes.

Though not exclusively limited to renewables + storage (the CAISO defines “hybrid” to mean any combination of multiple technologies or fuel types combined into a single resource with a single point of interconnection), the CAISO emphasizes the anticipated impacts of increased storage market penetration, including new operational and forecasting challenges,  as a driving force for the initiative. The CAISO has observed that the number of hybrid resource configurations seeking interconnection comprises approximately 41% of the CAISO’s Generator Interconnection Queue’s total capacity.Continue Reading CAISO Seeks Stakeholder Feedback on Hybrid Resource Market Participation

State legislatures across the country have been active this spring debating ambitious new targets and renewable energy market reforms, following the successful passage of multiple renewable energy mandates in certain states.  Last year California passed SB 100, which sets the target of 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045.  At least other three states—Hawaii, New Mexico, and Washington—have also adopted 100% renewable energy targets and, according to Inside Climate News, several other states debated 100% renewable energy legislation this spring including Minnesota, Illinois, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts.

Like other states adopting renewable energy mandates, the Washington legislature specifically concluded “that Washington must address the impacts of climate change by leading the transition to a clean energy economy … by transforming its energy supply.”  To support this goal, the Act mandates 100% renewable electricity generation by 2045.  To help achieve this, section six of the Washington law mandates that utilities must file a
“four-year clean energy implementation plan” by 2022 and every four years after that.  Each action plan must include “specific actions to be taken by investor-owned utility[ies] over the next four years … that demonstrate progress toward meeting the standards … of [the] act.”  By requiring the utilities to provide relatively frequent updates, the Washington legislature appears to indicate a desire for strong oversight of the transition to 100% renewable electricity generation.

In other states, such as Minnesota, 100% carbon-free targets were the subject of substantial attention and debate but were not ultimately adopted.  The Minnesota legislature ultimately passed a jobs and energy omnibus bill in a special session this year with more limited ambition—including provisions for energy storage pilot programs, which will allow public utilities to pursue and recover costs for such programs.  The pilot program petitions, at a minimum, must provide: (1) the storage technology utilized; (2) the energy storage capacity and the duration of the output at the capacity; (3) the proposed location; (4) the cost of purchase and installation; (5) the interplay between the storage facility and existing distributed generation resources; and (6) the overall goals of the project. 
Continue Reading Renewable Energy Trending in State Legislative Sessions

The 2019-2020 California Legislative Session has reached its first deadline.  February 22, 2019 marked the deadline by which bills could be introduced for the first half of the Legislative Session. Lawmakers will begin Spring Recess April 12 and reconvene April 22.  The last day for bills to be passed out of the house of origin is May 31, 2019.

Below is a list of some of the key bills Stoel Rives’ Energy Team will be monitoring throughout the Legislative Session.  We note that some bills do not contain language beyond the “intent of the Legislature.”  However, we will continue to monitor these bills in case of substantive amendments.  These bills are set forth separately below under the heading “Legislative Intent.”

The majority of the bills introduced this Legislative Session relate in some way to California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move to cleaner sources of generation, including legislation governing electric vehicles, energy storage, and renewable energy.  A number of bills introduced in February also attempt to address the impacts of wildfires, or to reduce wildfire risk.


ASSEMBLY BILLS

AB 40 (Ting, D)   Zero-emission vehicles: comprehensive strategy.

Status: Introduced December 3, 2018; referred to Committees on Transportation and Natural Resources January 24, 2019.

AB 40 would require by no later than January 1, 2021, the State Air Resources Board to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the sales of new motor vehicles and new light-duty trucks in the state have transitioned fully to zero-emission vehicles, as defined, by 2040, as specified.
Continue Reading Key Energy Related Bills Introduced in the 2019-2020 Legislative Session