The first round of procurement under California’s community solar program is nearly complete, and the early results suggest that no power purchase agreements (“PPAs”) will be awarded.
Background on the RFO
California’s community solar program is formally known as the Enhanced Community Renewables (“ECR”) program. The ECR program is part of the larger Green Tariff
February 17, 2017 marked the deadline by which legislators had to introduce bills for the first half of the 2017-2018 Legislative Session. The Stoel Rives’ Energy Team has been and will continue to monitor bills throughout the two-year session and will provide periodic updates as to the status of those bills. Most noteworthy here is SB 584 which would require 100% of all electricity sold in California at retail to be generated by eligible renewable energy resources by December 31, 2045. A summary of SB 584 is provided below, in addition to the status and summary of other energy related bills Stoel Rives is monitoring, starting with a set of bills related to energy storage.
Please also reference our Oil & Gas post summarizing bills related to oil and gas law here.
SB 584 (De León). California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program.
Under existing law, the California Public Utilities Commission (“CPUC”) has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, while local publicly owned electric utilities, as defined, are under the direction of their governing boards. The California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program requires the CPUC to establish a renewables portfolio standard requiring all retail sellers, as defined, to procure a minimum quantity of electricity products from eligible renewable energy resources, as defined, so that the total kilowatt-hours of those products sold to their retail end-use customers achieves 25% of retail sales by December 31, 2016, 33% by December 31, 2020, 40% by December 31, 2024, 45% by December 31, 2027, and 50% by December 31, 2030. The program additionally requires each local publicly owned electric utility, as defined, to procure a minimum quantity of electricity products from eligible renewable energy resources to achieve the procurement requirements established by the program. The Legislature has separately declared that its intent in implementing the program is to attain, among other targets for sale of eligible renewable resources, the target of 50% of total retail sales of electricity by December 31, 2030. This bill would revise those legislative findings and declarations to state that the goal of the program is to achieve that 50% target by December 31, 2025, and for all electricity sold at retail to be generated by eligible renewable energy resources by December 31, 2045.
Bills Related to Energy Storage
AB 914 (Mullin, D): Transmission planning: energy storage and demand response.
STATUS: Introduced February 16, 2017; awaiting referral.
Existing law vests the CPUC with jurisdiction over the delivery of electrical services, provides for the establishment of an Independent System Operator (“ISO”) as a nonprofit public benefit corporation and requires the ISO to make certain filings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) and to seek authority from FERC to give ISO the ability to secure generating and transmission resources necessary to guarantee achievement of planning and operating reserve criteria no less stringent than those established by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council and the North American Electric Reliability Council. If passed, this bill would require the CPUC, in its participation in the ISO’s transmission planning process, to promote the consideration of the use of energy storage systems and demand response as means to address the state’s transmission needs before the use of transmission wires.
AB 1030 (Ting, D): Energy storage systems.
STATUS: Introduced February 16, 2017; awaiting referral.
Existing law requires the CPUC to open a proceeding to determine appropriate targets, if any, for each load-serving entity to procure viable and cost-effective energy storage systems to be achieved by December 31, 2015, and December 31, 2020. If determined to be appropriate, the CPUC is required to adopt the procurement targets and to reevaluate all of these determinations not less than once every three years. AB 1030 would require the CPUC to establish a program to incentivize residential and commercial customers to adopt energy storage systems.
SB 356 (Skinner, D): Energy storage systems.
STATUS: Introduced February 14, 2017; awaiting referral..
Under current law, the CPUC has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Current law requires the commission to open a proceeding to determine appropriate targets, if any, for each load-serving entity, as defined, to procure viable and cost-effective energy storage systems to be achieved by December 31, 2015, and December 31, 2020. This bill would make a non-substantive change in legislative findings and declarations adopted with the above-described energy storage system requirements.
Continue Reading California Energy Related Bills Introduced in the 2017-2018 Legislative Session
Via my colleague Xiaowan Mao:
On August 31, 2016, SDG&E will issue one ECR Request for Offers (“RFO”), seeking contracts with facilities that produce Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)-eligible energy for the purpose of implementing its ECR program. In this solicitation, SDG&E is seeking PPAs for the ECR program only. This solicitation is not requesting bids for feed-in-tariff projects (e.g. Re-MAT, Bio-MAT), GT projects, BioRAM or other RPS procurement activities that currently exist or are being contemplated.
Approved on September 28, 2013, Senate Bill (SB) 43[1] created the Green Tariff Shared Renewables (“GTSR”) program, which consists of a Green Tariff (“GT”) option and an Enhanced Community Renewables (“ECR”) component.[2] San Diego Gas & Electric Company (“SDG&E”) plays an active role in implementing the GTSR program to: (1) make clean, renewable energy available to bundled utility customers, whether or not they own a home and/or can afford a significant capital investment; (2) increase the overall volume of renewable energy in the area of San Diego and (3) increase options for institutional, commercial and residential customers to meet their renewable energy goals. [3]
Continue Reading SDG&E Seeks Projects for Community Renewables Program
The California Public Utilities Commission yesterday adopted – by a 3-2 vote – a proposed decision revising the net energy metering (NEM) tariff for customers of the state’s three largest utilities who install renewable distributed generation (DG) on their properties. To the dismay of the dissenting commissioners, the final decision adopted late proposed changes that
The California Public Utilities Commission released a proposed decision yesterday in its proceeding concerning the future of net energy metering (NEM) for customers of the state’s three largest utilities who install renewable distributed generation (DG) on their properties. In comments filed in early-August, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SGE), and San
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) could soon make big changes to how rooftop solar installations function in the state. Under Assembly Bill 327, enacted in 2013, the CPUC has until December 31, 2015 to “develop a standard contract or tariff” that applies to “customer-generators” who own rooftop solar installations or other distributed generation
Over the weekend, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 2188, which is designed to streamline the permitting process for small rooftop solar systems. The new law seeks to give California’s Million Solar Roofs target a boost by establishing a state wide “modernized and standardized permitting process.” The new law amends Section 714 of the
We recently learned that San Diego Gas and Electric has issued a 2014 All Source Request for Offers (RFO).
The RFO requests offers for up to 800 MW from the following resources:
The RFO is authorized by
On July 1, 2014, the City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU) issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to create a CPAU-branded Community Solar Program. According to CPAU, "the primary objectives for the program are 1) to help facilitate reaching the City’s target of meeting 4% of its energy needs from local solar energy by 2023 (from 0.7% in 2013)
On December 16, 2013, San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) issued its 2013 Request for Offers ("RFO") seeking Eligible Renewable Resources. This solicitation will facilitate SDG&E’s compliance with California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard (“RPS”).
The solicitation seeks Eligible Renewable Resources from all types of renewable technologies providing both Renewable Energy Credits (“RECs”) and Energy (“Bundled