Current through Register 2024 Notice Reg. No. 38, September 20, 2024
(a) Purpose. This article establishes
electric load management standards pursuant to Section
25403.5
of the Public Resources Code. These standards establish cost-effective programs
and rate structures which will encourage the use of electrical energy at
off-peak hours and encourage the control of daily and seasonal peak loads to
improve electric system equity, efficiency, and reliability, lessen or delay
the need for new electrical capacity, and reduce fossil fuel consumption and
greenhouse gas emissions, thereby lowering the long-term economic and
environmental costs of meeting the State's electricity needs. These load
management standards do not set rates. The standards instead require that
entities subject to this article offer rates or programs structured according
to the requirements established herein.
(b) Application. Except as set forth below,
each of the standards in this article applies to the following electric
utilities: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, San Diego Gas and
Electric Company, Southern California Edison Company, Pacific Gas and Electric
Company, and Sacramento Municipal Utility District. In addition, the standards
set forth in subsections
1621 and
1623 of this article apply to any
Large Community Choice Aggregators (CCA) operating within the service areas and
receiving distribution services from the foregoing electric utilities. Large
CCAs are not subject to subsections
1622,
1624, and
1625 of this article. Section
1621 subsections (d)-(g) and
Section 1623 subsections (a), (b) and (d)
do not apply to either the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the
Sacramento Municipal Utility District or to the Large CCAs. The standards set
forth in Section
1623.1 apply to the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and to
the Large CCAs. The Commission has found these standards to be technologically
feasible and cost-effective when compared with the costs for new electrical
capacity for the above-named electric utilities, and Large CCAs operating
within the service areas of such electric utilities.
(c) Definitions. In this article, the
following definitions apply:
(1) "Building
type" means the classification of a non-residential building in accordance with
California Code of Regulations, Title 24, Part 2, Chapter 3 of the California
Building Code.
(2) "Community
choice aggregators" or "CCAs" means entities as defined in Public Utilities
Code section
331.1.
(3) "Central air conditioner" means any
residential electric air conditioner which delivers cooled air through ducts to
rooms.
(4) "Commercial customers"
means those customers of a utility or CCA who run any business described in
Standard Industrial Classification Groups 40 through 86, and 89 through 99, and
which do not treat sewage or manufacture goods or provide other
process-oriented services.
(A) "Large
commercial customers" are those businesses whose demand for electricity equals
or exceeds 500 kilowatts.
(B)
"Small commercial customers" are those businesses whose demand for electricity
is less than 500 kilowatts.
(5) "Conditioned Space" means an enclosed
space within a building that is directly conditioned or indirectly conditioned,
consistent with California Code of Regulations, Title 24, Part 6, section
100.1(b).
(6) "Customer class"
means a broad group of customers used for rate design. Customer classes include
but are not limited to residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural,
but does not include street lighting. "Customer" or "customers" mean a customer
or customers of a utility or Large CCA within a customer class.
(7) "Greenhouse gas" or "GHG" has the same
meaning as in California Code of Regulations, Title 17, section
95802.
(8) "Large Investor-Owned
Utilities" and "Large IOUs" mean the San Diego Gas and Electric Company, the
Southern California Edison Company, and the Pacific Gas and Electric
Company.
(9) "Large Publicly-Owned
Utilities" and "Large POUs" mean the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
(10) "Large Community Choice Aggregators" and
"Large CCAs" mean the Clean Power Alliance of Southern California, East Bay
Community Energy, Marin Clean Energy, Central Coast Community Energy, Silicon
Valley Clean Energy Authority, San Jose Clean Energy, Peninsula Clean Energy
Authority, Clean Power SF, Sonoma Clean Power Authority, San Diego Community
Power, Pioneer Community Energy, Valley Clean Energy, and any community choice
aggregator that provides in excess of 700 GWh of electricity to customers in
any calendar year. For community choice aggregators that become subject to
these regulations after their effective date, the effective date of their
compliance obligations shall be April 1 of the year after they exceed the 700
GWh threshold.
(11) "Load
management tariff" means a tariff with time-dependent values that vary
according to the time of day to encourage off-peak electricity use and
reductions in peak electricity use.
(12) "Marginal cost" or "locational marginal
cost" means the change in current and future electric system cost that is
caused by a change in electricity supply and demand during a specified time
interval at a specified location.
(13) "Rate Identification Number" or "RIN"
means the unique identifier established by the Commission for an electricity
rate.
(14) "Rate-approving body"
means the California Public Utilities Commission in the case of investor-owned
utilities, or the governing body of CCAs or publicly owned utilities. For
purposes of this article, the Board of Water and Power Commissioners of the
City of Los Angeles is the rate-approving body for the Los Angeles Department
of Water and Power.
(15)
"Residential" means any family dwelling within the utility's or CCA's service
area which uses electricity for noncommercial purposes as defined in the
utility's or CCA's terms and conditions of service.
(16) "Service area" means any contiguous
geographic area serviced by the same electric utility or CCA.
(17) "Tariff" means a pricing schedule or
rate plan that a utility or CCA offers to their customers specifying the
components of the customer's electricity bill.
(18) "Time-dependent rate" means a rate that
can vary depending on the time of day to encourage off-peak electricity use and
reductions in peak electricity use. Time-of-use, hourly, and sub-hourly rates
are time-dependent rates.
(19)
"Time-of-use rate" means a rate with predefined prices that vary according to
the time of day, the season, and/or the day type (weekday, weekend, or
holiday).
(20) "Utility" means
those electric utilities to which the sections of this article apply, as
specified in subsection (b).
(21)
"Water heater" means any residential electric water heater except those which
provide hot water to heat space or those which operate within electric
dishwashers.
(d) Large
IOU Plans to Comply with Load Management Standards
(1) Each Large IOU shall submit a plan to
comply with Sections
1621 and
1623 of this article to the
Executive Director no later than six (6) months after April 1, 2023.
(2) The Executive Director shall review the
plans and either return them to the Large IOU for revision or submit them to
the Commission for review and potential approval. The Executive Director may
recommend, and the Commission may approve, a submittal on condition that the
Large IOU make specified changes or additions to the submittal, within a
reasonable period of time set by the Commission. A conditionally-approved plan
shall not become effective until the Large IOU makes the specified changes or
additions to the submittal under review. The Commission shall approve
submittals which are consistent with these regulations and which show a good
faith effort to plan to meet program goals for the standards. In reviewing a
plan, the Executive Director and the Commission may request additional
information consistent with Sections
1621 and
1623.
(3) All proposed plan revisions must be
submitted to the Executive Director for review. The Executive Director may
approve plan revisions that do not affect compliance with the requirements of
Sections 1621 or
1623. The Executive Director shall
submit all other plan revisions to the Commission for approval.
(4) Large IOUs shall submit to the Executive
Director annual reports demonstrating their implementation of plans approved
pursuant to this section. The reports shall be submitted one year after plans
are approved pursuant to subsection (2) and annually
thereafter.
(e)
Exemptions, Delays, or Modifications
(1) Large
IOUs may apply to the Executive Director for an exemption from the requirements
of Sections
1621 and
1623 of this article, to delay
compliance with its requirements, or to modify a load management standard
compliance plan. The Commission may, by resolution, order a Large IOU to modify
its approved load management standard plan. Upon such order by the Commission,
a Large IOU shall submit an application to modify its plan within 90 days of
the Commission's order.
(2)
Applications for exemptions or delays shall set forth the requested period
during which the exemption or delay would apply and indicate when the Large IOU
reasonably believes the exemption or delay will no longer be needed. The
application further shall demonstrate one or more of the following:
(A) that despite a Large IOU's good faith
efforts to comply, requiring timely compliance with the requirements of this
article would result in extreme hardship to the Large IOU,
(B) requiring timely compliance with the
requirements of this article would result in reduced system reliability (e.g.,
equity or safety) or efficiency, or
(C) requiring timely compliance with the
requirements of this article would not be technologically feasible or
cost-effective for the Large IOU to implement. Applications for exemptions or
delays may be supported by proposing pilot programs that demonstrate how and
when a Large IOU will come into compliance with the requirements of this
article.
(3) Applications
for modifications shall demonstrate that despite the Large IOU's good faith
efforts to implement its load management standard plan, the plan must be
modified to provide a more technologically feasible, equitable, safe or
cost-effective way to achieve the requirements of this article or the plan's
goals.
(4) The Executive Director
shall review applications for exemptions, delays, and modifications and make an
initial determination of whether an application demonstrates the requirements
of either subsection (2) or (3) above. The Executive Director shall then submit
the application to the Commission with a recommendation of whether to approve
or reject the application based on their initial determination. In reviewing
these applications, the Executive Director and the Commission may request
additional information or revisions of the application from a Large IOU
consistent with Sections
1621 and
1623. If a Large IOU fails to
provide information or revisions by a deadline established by the Executive
Director or the Commission, the Commission may deny the application on that
basis. The Commission may place conditions on its approval of plans or material
plan revisions that are necessary to guarantee that the plan or plan revision
will comply with Section
1621 and
1623 by a date
certain.
(f) Enforcement.
The Executive Director may, after reviewing the matter with the Large IOU, file
a complaint with the Commission following the process set forth in Sections
1233.1 to
1233.4 or seek injunctive relief
if a Large IOU:
(1) Fails to adhere to its
approved or conditionally approved load management standard plan,
(2) Modifies its approved load management
standard plan without approval,
(3)
Does not provide information by a deadline established by the Executive
Director or the Commission, or
(4)
Violates the provisions of this article.
(g) Recovery of Program Costs
In its rate applications, each Large IOU shall seek to
recover the full costs associated with conducting each program required by this
article from the class of customers which the program most directly affects.
The Large IOU shall not be required to commence implementation of any program
required by this article until the Large IOU's rate-approving body has approved
the tariffs which are a part of any such program and a method for recovering
the costs of the program. This does not affect any obligations Large IOUs have
under Section
1623(b).
1. New
Article 5 (Sections 1621-1625) filed 6-8-79; effective thirtieth day thereafter
(Register 79, No. 23).
2. Amendment of subsections (a), (b), (c)(9),
(d) and (h)(3); new subsection (c)(10); and repealer of former subsection (j)
filed 8-13-82; effective thirtieth day thereafter (Register 82, No.
33).
3. Amendment of section and NOTE filed 1-20-2023; operative
4-1-2023 (Register 2023, No. 3).
Note: Authority cited: Sections
25213,
25218(e)
and
25403.5,
Public Resources Code. Reference: Sections
25132
and
25403.5,
Public Resources Code.
