BILL ANALYSIS
AB 920
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 6, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 920 (Huffman) - As Amended: February 26, 2009
Policy Committee:
UtilitiesVote:11-3
Natural Resources 6-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill expands the current net-metering programs for wind and
solar energy to allow the net-metered customers to sell any
excess electricity they produce over a 12-month period to their
electric utility. Specifically, this bill:
1)Defines a "net surplus customer-generator" as a party that
generates more electricity in a 12-month period than the
customer purchases from the utility during that same period.
2)Requires all investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and
publicly-owned utilities (POUs) offering net-metering to
purchase all net surplus electricity produced from the
customer's wind or solar generator at a rate to be set by the
Public Utilities Commission (PUC) or the POUs by January 1,
2011. The rate is to provide the customer-generator "just and
reasonable" compensation for the surplus energy sales, leave
all other ratepayers indifferent, and not result in any cost
shifting to non-customer generators.
3)Provides that the utility shall own all of the renewable
attributes or renewable energy credits (RECs) associated with
any net surplus electricity it must purchase. The customer
will retain the REC associated with the electricity generated
and used by the customer.
FISCAL EFFECT
The PUC would incur the following special fund costs: One-time
costs of about $250,000 in 2010 for two regulatory analysts and
AB 920
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one-fourth time for an administrative law judge to conduct the
ratemaking; ongoing costs of about $210,000 for the two analyst
positions to monitor compliance with the PUC decision and the
impacts on net-metering customers and other ratepayers. [Public
Utilities Reimbursement Account]
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the author, this bill is intended to
allow electric utility customers installing solar or wind
generators on their property to be paid by their electric
utility for the "surplus" electricity they produce. The author
believes this will encourage homeowners and businesses to
conserve more electricity (and thus have more surplus power to
sell to the utility) and will allow property owners to install
the maximum number of solar panels on their home.
This bill provides that a customer of almost every electricity
utility in California can install solar or wind generators on
their own property that produce more electricity than the
customer's own demand (up to 1 megawatt in size). They can
receive the rebates under the California Solar Initiative
(CSI) for the solar energy system, but only for the portion of
the system that will meet the customer's own demand. The
customers will then be under a net-metered tariff giving them
a bill credit valued at the retail rate of electricity for any
excess the customer produces during the year. If, at the end
of the year, the credits exceed the total electricity the
customer consumed from the utility, the customer will be a net
surplus producer and the utility would then pay the customer
for the net surplus electricity, which would be valued at a
rate to be set by the PUC (for IOU customer-generators) and by
POUs for their respective customer generators.
2)Prior Legislation . This bill is similar to AB 1920 (Huffman)
of 2008, which was held on Suspense in Senate Appropriations.
3)Related Legislation . SB 7 (Wiggins), pending in Senate
Appropriations, is substantially similar to this bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081