Energy programs and projects: nonenergy benefits.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations. Pursuant to existing law, the commission supervises various energy efficiency, renewable energy resource, self-generation, distributed generation, and demand response programs. This bill would require the commission to (1) begin the process, by January 1, 2023, to establish common definitions of nonenergy benefits and attempt to determine consistent values and methodologies for use in assigning priority access to authorized funds by distributed energy resource programs, (2) prioritize the use of authorized funding to support distributed energy resource programs and projects that provide the greatest nonenergy benefits, particularly for disadvantaged communities, and (3) track the demonstrated nonenergy benefits resulting from distributed energy resource programs during program evaluations and make this data available publicly on the commission's internet website. The bill would prohibit the calculation of nonenergy benefits from being used in a manner that results in incremental cost shifting to nonparticipating customers or from being used to determine the cost effectiveness of distribution deferral projects or to estimate the value of avoided costs for use in evaluating distributed energy resource programs.