Electrical corporations: uneconomic cost recovery: bottoming cycle waste heat recovery.

Existing law specifies that, in recognition of statutory authority and past investments existing as of December 20, 1995, and subject to a specified fire wall, the uneconomic costs of specified energy-generation-related assets and obligations are applied to each customer based on the amount of electricity purchased by the customer from an electrical corporation, subject to changes in usage occurring in the normal course of business. Existing law specifies those changes that constitute "changes in usage occurring in the normal course of business" to include, among others, changes in fuel switching. This bill would additionally include the production of electricity using bottoming cycle waste heat recovery, as defined, as changes in fuel switching. The bill would exempt from all nonbypassable charges approved by the Public Utilities Commission changes in usage occurring in the normal course of business, and would require the commission ensure that the customers made exempt from paying those charges pay their cost of receiving service from an electrical corporation. With respect to electricity produced using bottoming cycle waste heat recovery, the bill would limit the amount of electricity exempt from those nonbypassable charges to a cumulative total of 200 megawatts of load within all service areas of electrical corporations and would prohibit nonbypassable charges avoided in this manner from being recovered from residential ratepayers and ratepayers with an average monthly usage of 500 kilowatthours of electricity or less.