Bioenergy feed-in tariff.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires every electrical corporation to file with the commission a standard tariff for electricity generated by an electric generation facility, as defined, that qualifies for the tariff, is owned and operated by a retail customer of the electrical corporation, and is located within the service territory of, and developed to sell electricity to, the electrical corporation. The commission refers to this requirement as the renewable feed-in tariff. Existing law requires that, in order to qualify for the tariff, the electric generation facility: (1) have an effective capacity of not more than 3 megawatts, subject to the authority of the commission to reduce this megawatt limitation, (2) be interconnected and operate in parallel with the electric transmission and distribution grid, (3) be strategically located and interconnected to the electrical transmission and distribution system in a manner that optimizes the deliverability of electricity generated at the facility to load centers, and (4) meet the definition of an eligible renewable energy resource under the California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program. Existing law requires an electrical corporation to make the tariff available to the owner or operator of an electric generation facility within the service territory of the electrical corporation, upon request, on a first-come-first-served basis, until the electrical corporation meets its proportionate share of a statewide cap of 750 megawatts cumulative rated generation capacity served under the renewable feed-in tariff and a renewable feed-in tariff that is applicable to a local publicly owned electric utility. In addition to the 750 megawatt limitation, the renewable feed-in tariff requires the commission to direct the electrical corporations to collectively procure at least 250 megawatts of cumulative rated generating capacity from developers of bioenergy projects that commence operation on or after June 1, 2013 (bioenergy feed-in tariff) . The commission is required to undertake specific steps to implement the bioenergy feed-in tariff requirement. This bill would, for the purposes of the bioenergy feed-in tariff, revise a generally applicable interconnection requirement for electric generation facilities, as specified. The bill would also require the commission to direct the electrical corporations to authorize a bioenergy electric generation facility with an effective capacity of up to 5 megawatts to participate in the bioenergy feed-in tariff if the facility delivers no more than 3 megawatts to the grid at any time and complies with specified interconnection requirements. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 399.20 of the Public Utilities Code proposed by AB 1612 and SB 840 that would become operative if this bill and one or both of those bills are enacted and this bill is chaptered last.