Electricity: net energy metering.

(1) Existing law, relative to private energy producers, requires every electric utility, as defined, to make available to an eligible customer‑generator, as defined, a standard contract or tariff for net energy metering on a first-come-first-served basis until the time that the total rated generating capacity used by eligible customer‑generators exceeds 5% of the electric utility's aggregate customer peak demand. The existing definition of an eligible customer-generator limits the generating capacity of the solar or wind turbine electrical generating facility, or hybrid facility of both, used by the eligible customer-generator to one megawatt. This bill would require that the standard contract or tariff for net energy metering be offered on a first-come-first-served basis until the time that the total rated generating capacity used by eligible customer‑generators exceeds 6% of the electric utility's aggregate customer peak demand and, until January 1, 2016, would reserve 1% of this limit for large commercial or industrial customer-generators, as defined. This bill would prohibit the electricity fed back to the electric grid by large commercial or industrial customer-generators from offsetting charges for transmission and distribution services. The bill would revise the definition of an eligible customer-generator to authorize generating facilities of up to 5 megawatts. The bill would make other conforming and clarifying changes. (2) Existing law requires electric utilities to ensure that requests for an interconnection agreement from an eligible customer-generator are processed in a time period not to exceed 30 working days from the date the application is received. This bill would require electric utilities to process these requests from eligible large commercial or industrial customer-generators in a time period not to exceed 90 days and would require the costs of required interconnection studies and upgrades to be paid by the large commercial or industrial customer-generator. (3) Existing law makes legislative findings and declarations relative to the repeal of provisions of the net metering program for large customers. This bill would repeal these findings and declarations.