Water: reasonable use: electrical generation facilities.

The California Constitution provides that the right to water shall be limited to that amount of water that is reasonably required for the beneficial use to be served. Existing law declares that the use of potable domestic water for cooling towers is a waste or an unreasonable use of water if recycled water is available and other requirements are met. The existing renewables portfolio standard program requires that a retail seller of electricity, including electrical corporations, community choice aggregators, and electric service providers, but not including local publicly owned electric utilities, purchase a specified minimum percentage of electricity generated by eligible renewable energy resources, as defined, in any given year as a specified percentage of total kilowatthours sold to retail end-use customers each calendar year. This bill would declare that the use of potable domestic water for cooling towers that are part of a generating system that is an eligible renewable energy resource is a reasonable use of water if certain requirements are met.