Public utilities: military installations: independent generation facilities.

Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Pursuant to its existing authority, the commission issued Electrical Rule 21 establishing operational and metering requirements for a generation facility to be connected to an electrical corporation's distribution system. Existing law relative to private energy producers requires every electric utility, as defined, to develop a standard contract or tariff providing for net energy metering, as defined, and to make this contract or tariff available to eligible customer-generators, as defined, upon request for generation by a renewable electrical generation facility, as defined. The existing definition of an eligible customer-generator requires that the generating facility use a renewable source of energy, as specified, and have a generating capacity of not more than one megawatt. Existing law requires that every electric utility ensure that requests for an interconnection agreement from an eligible customer-generator are processed in a time period not to exceed 30 working days from the date it receives a completed application form from the eligible customer-generator for an interconnection agreement. This bill would require the commission to determine criteria that would allow an independent generation facility, as defined, to apply for interconnection to the utility electric distribution grid under the fast track review process, as defined under Rule 21. Under existing law, a violation of an order, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because a failure of an electric utility to process an interconnection request from an independent generation facility pursuant to Rule 21 would be a crime, this 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 a specified reason.