California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program: local publicly owned electric utilities: adjustment of procurement requirements.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations while local publicly owned electric utilities are under the direction of their governing boards. The California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program requires the Public Utilities Commission to establish a renewables portfolio standard requiring all retail sellers, as defined, to procure a minimum quantity of electricity products from eligible renewable energy resources, as defined, so that the total kilowatthours of those products sold to their retail end-use customers achieves 25% of retail sales by December 31, 2016, 33% by December 31, 2020, 44% by December 31, 2024, 52% by December 31, 2027, and 60% by December 31, 2030. The program additionally requires each local publicly owned electric utility, as defined, to procure a minimum quantity of electricity products from eligible renewable energy resources to achieve the procurement requirements established by the program. Existing law authorizes a local publicly owned electric utility that has a gas-fired powerplant on which public debt is owed and that is operating at less than 20% of capacity, with Energy Commission approval, to adjust its renewable energy procurement targets by a specified amount if additional conditions are met. Existing law requires a local publicly owned electric utility intending to act pursuant to that authorization to notify the Energy Commission by April 1, 2019, of that intention. This bill would provide that this authorization to adjust renewable energy procurement targets applies to a local publicly owned electric utility only if it has 10,000 or more customers in addition to all other applicable conditions.