SB 620 California Senate · 2025-2026 Regular Session

Energy utility data.

Summary

Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations, while local publicly owned utilities are under the direction of their governing boards. Existing law prohibits an electrical corporation, gas corporation, or local publicly owned electric utility from sharing, disclosing, or otherwise making accessible to any third party a customer's electrical or gas consumption data, as defined, except as specified. This bill would require the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to create the Data Access Governance Committee, with specified membership, and would require the committee, on or before January 1, 2027, to provide initial recommendations on prescribed topics to the Energy Commission and the PUC, as specified. The bill would authorize the Energy Commission to work with certain gas corporations, electrical corporations, and local publicly owned utilities that provide gas or electrical service to enact cost-effective energy utility data programs, as specified. The bill would create, and would require the PUC and the Energy Commission to administer and enforce, the Customer Energy Utility Data Bill of Rights, with specified protections and customer rights. Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime. Because a violation of a PUC action implementing the requirements of this bill would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. In addition, to the extent the bill would impose new requirements on local publicly owned utilities, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.

Issues: ✓ Technology

Bill status failed 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Feb 2025

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Feb 20, 2025 Last action Feb 2, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 2 comparisons

What changed between versions

04/21/25 - Amended Senate → SB620 · 2 edits

MINOR

This diff reflects a change in document presentation format rather than any substantive policy change. The bill text moved from a formal legislative document layout (with page numbers, line numbers, and traditional headers) to a web-based display format with navigation elements, search tools, and version tracking. All actual provisions of SB 620 remain identical between the two versions.

TECHNICAL

The bill was reformatted from a traditional legislative document (with page numbers, line numbers, and formal headers) into a web page layout with navigation menus, search fields, version history links, and shareable metadata.

Web interface elements were added including quick search fields, bill information tabs, PDF download links, version comparison tools, and a published timestamp of 04/21/2025 09:00 PM.

02/20/25 - Introduced → 04/21/25 - Amended Senate · 8 edits · Apr 21, 2025

MODERATE

The amendment dramatically expands SB 620 from a single-section bill focused on rate case data verification into a comprehensive energy utility data governance framework. It adds a Data Access Governance Committee under the Energy Commission and creates a Customer Energy Utility Data Bill of Rights with specific consumer protections, while retaining the original rate case data provisions. The bill now imposes state-mandated local program obligations on local publicly owned utilities.

SCOPE

The bill now adds Section 25234 to the Public Resources Code and Section 8382 to the Public Utilities Code in addition to the original Section 451.10, expanding scope from rate case data verification to a full energy utility data governance regime.

State-mandated local program designation changed from 'no' to 'yes' because the amended bill imposes new requirements on local publicly owned utilities and creates criminal penalties for violations of PUC actions.

REQUIREMENT

Creates a Data Access Governance Committee under the Energy Commission with up to 12 members representing utilities, consumers, disadvantaged communities, local publicly owned utilities, community choice aggregators, distributed energy industry, labor, energy service suppliers, and academic experts. The committee meets quarterly.

Creates a Customer Energy Utility Data Bill of Rights administered by both the PUC and Energy Commission, including: customer ownership of their energy data, secure maintenance, right to share data with third parties on one-time or ongoing basis, notification and opt-out when data is shared, ability to manage meter data access without requiring online utility accounts, access to 24 months of historic data, and the right to participate in demand response programs through service providers of choice.

TIMELINE

The Data Access Governance Committee must provide initial recommendations to the Energy Commission and PUC by January 1, 2027 on data use guidelines, support operations, third-party data administration, and data access quality and reliability.

ELIGIBILITY

Authorizes the Energy Commission to work with gas corporations, electrical corporations, and local publicly owned utilities that have more than 50,000 service connections in California to enact cost-effective energy utility data programs.

ENFORCEMENT

The Customer Energy Utility Data Bill of Rights includes data disclosure protections consistent with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Violations of PUC actions implementing the bill constitute a crime, making this a state-mandated local program.

FISCAL

Adds a provision stating no reimbursement is required under Article XIII B of the California Constitution because local agencies can levy sufficient service charges or fees, or because costs arise from creating or changing a crime.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Amendments

Apr 21, 2025

Upper · Passed

From committee with author's amendments. Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on E., U & C.

upper

Mar 5, 2025

Committee

Referred to Com. on E., U & C.

upper

Feb 20, 2025

Introduced

Introduced. Read first time. To Com. on RLS. for assignment. To print.

upper

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors