Encouraging utility investment in local energy resilience.

The bill's title and purpose were updated to emphasize encouraging distributed energy resources instead of just local energy resilience.

A new section defines 'distributed energy priority projects,' specifically listing solar and wind on landfills, reclaimed mines, transportation facilities, and existing structures, as well as agrivoltaic facilities.

Tax classification rules were updated to explicitly state that adding an agrivoltaic facility to farm land does not trigger a tax reclassification penalty.

New definitions were added for 'agrivoltaic facility' and specific types of distributed energy storage and generation to clarify what projects qualify for incentives.

The compliance pathway for utilities was updated to allow them to use 'distributed energy priority projects' alongside traditional renewable resources to meet state mandates.

The definition of 'local energy resilience project' was replaced with 'distributed energy priority project,' which now includes distributed solar, wind, and storage in addition to conservation and demand response.

The list of eligible projects for the alternative compliance pathway was reduced from eight options (including solar, wind, and batteries) to just two: accelerated conservation and demand response.

The previous requirement that utilities invest at least two percent of their revenue in local resilience projects was replaced with the new, narrower compliance method.

New definitions were added for 'accelerated conservation' to specify it must exceed the utility's standard acquisition target and to establish how energy savings are calculated over the useful life of the measures.

The bill header was updated to reflect a new reading date of February 21, 2025, and the bill number was changed from S-0653.1 to S-1753.1.