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Bills

AB 643: Electric Rule 21: interconnection: distributed renewable generation.

  • Session Year: 2023-2024
  • House: Assembly

Current Status:

Failed

(2024-02-01: From committee: Filed with the Chief Clerk pursuant to Joint Rule 56.)

Introduced

First Committee Review

First Chamber

Second Committee Review

Second Chamber

Enacted

Version:

Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires the commission to make various reports to the Legislature, including a report on the progress made toward modernizing the states distribution and transmission grid and the impacts of distributed energy resources on the states distribution and transmission grid, as specified. The commissions Electric Rule 21 establishes a tariff that describes the interconnection, operating, and metering requirements of generation facilities to be connected to an electrical corporations distribution system.

This bill would require the commission, on or before June 1 of each year, to submit a report to the Legislature on timelines for the interconnection of customer-sited energy generation and storage resources, as specified. The bill would require the commission to consider the negligent exceedance, as defined, of an interconnection timeline, as defined, by an electrical corporation to be a failure to comply with a rule of the commission and subject to a penalty. The bill would require an electrical corporation to provide a substantial response to any queries from an interconnection applicant related to the completeness of the application and the submission of supporting information to pending applications within 3 business days.

This bill would require the commission, on or before March 31, 2024, to commence the consideration of adopting mechanisms, as provided, for distributed renewable generation interconnections to enforce timelines, reduce administrative burden, and provide transparency and certainty to customers. The bill would require the commission, in considering the adoption of mechanisms, to create process improvements to, and potential timelines for, Electric Rule 21 to address certain types of delays.

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

Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and a violation of a commission action implementing its requirements would be a crime, the this 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 a specified reason.

Discussed in Hearing

Assembly Standing Committee on Utilities and Energy12MIN
Apr 26, 2023

Assembly Standing Committee on Utilities and Energy

View Older Hearings

Bill Author

Avatar: Marc Berman
Marc Berman

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