Wisconsin Administrative Code
Public Service Commission
Chapter PSC 117 - Assignment of costs and opportunity sales
Section PSC 117.03 - Definitions

Universal Citation: WI Admin Code ยง PSC 117.03

Current through February 26, 2024

In this chapter:

(1) "Capacity" means the continuous load-carrying ability of electric generation expressed in megawatts.

(2) "Commission" means the public service commission of Wisconsin.

(3) "Energy" means the amount of electric generation or use of electric power over a period of time, expressed in kilowatthours, megawatthours, or gigawatthours.

(4) "Excess capacity" means any existing capacity and any planned additional capacity that is not needed to meet native customers' capacity demands, contracted firm power sales, and the required planning reserve margin after taking into consideration scheduled maintenance outages.

(5) "Existing capacity" means all installed and in-service generating capacity owned by the public utility and all purchased firm capacity under contract to the public utility.

(6) "Firm capacity" means electric capacity that cannot be curtailed for economic reasons by either the transmission provider or the supplier of capacity.

(7) "Firm power sale" means any sale by a public utility of firm capacity, or firm capacity and electric energy to a customer other than the public utility's native customers.

(8) "Fuel rules" means the provisions of ch. PSC 116.

Note: The commission administers the fuel rules, under ch. PSC 116, to individual public utilities in the commission's rate orders for those public utilities.

(9) "Fully-allocated sale" means a firm power sale that does not meet the definition of an opportunity sale.

(10) "Incremental cost" means the additional costs that would be incurred by producing or purchasing the next available unit of electric energy or capacity in order to supply the sale.

(11) "Jurisdictional cost-of-service study" means a method of allocating a public utility's total revenue requirement among each retail and wholesale jurisdiction using factors such as capacity demands, energy requirements, and customer data.

(12) "Native customers" means the retail electric customers that the public utility has a duty to serve, under ss. 196.03(1), 196.20(1), and 196.53, Stats.

(13) "Non-firm power sale" means any sale of electric capacity, or electric capacity and energy, to a customer other than the public utility's native customers, that is not a firm power sale.

(14) "Opportunity sale" means either a non-firm power sale, or a firm power sale that meets all of the following conditions:

(a) The contracted sale is a firm power sale that does not extend more than 3 years.

(b) The contracted sales capacity could be supplied from excess capacity that existed at the time the sales contract was signed by the selling public utility, and at that time excess capacity was reasonably expected to exist during the entire term of the contract.

Note: Firm power sales contracts that include options for the purchaser to extend the contract to a period of more than 3 years shall be considered to extend more than 3 years.

Note: Firm power sales contracts that include a provision to automatically extend the contract to a period of more than 3 years, unless the purchaser notifies the seller that it is exercising it option to cancel the automatic extension, shall be considered a sale that extends more than 3 years.

(15) "Planned additional capacity" means any additional capacity that will be owned by the public utility and that is expected to be installed and in-service within three years. "Planned additional capacity" does not include additional capacity which requires commission approval under either s. 196.491, Stats., or ch. PSC 112 until such commission approval has been granted. "Planned additional capacity" does not include additional capacity that does not require commission approval under either s. 196.491, Stats., or ch. PSC 112 until the construction of such additional capacity has been approved by the board of directors of the public utility.

(16) "Planning reserve margin" means the difference between the public utility's expected annual peak existing capacity plus any planned additional capacity and the public utility's expected annual peak demand, expressed as a percentage of the annual peak demand. In this subsection, "public utility's expected annual peak demand" includes the expected peak demand of its native customers, less any interruptible sales to native customers, plus any firm power sales under contract.

(17) "Required planning reserve margin" means the minimum planning reserve margin that the commission requires the public utility to maintain for system reliability.

(18) "Scheduled maintenance outages" means regularly scheduled outages or planned outages caused by the removal of generation equipment from service for the purpose of inspection or general maintenance of one or more major components.

Disclaimer: These regulations may not be the most recent version. Wisconsin may have more current or accurate information. We make no warranties or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information contained on this site or the information linked to on the state site. Please check official sources.
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