PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Item #51
ID #9057
ENERGY DIVISION RESOLUTION E-4299
January 21, 2010
Resolution E-4299. Southern California Edison Company.
PROPOSED OUTCOME: This Resolution implements Southern California Edison Company's Solar Photovoltaic Program. Specifically, this Resolution adopts (1) a competitive solicitation process, protocols and eligibility criteria, (2) a standard power purchase agreement, and (3) annual compliance reporting requirements.
ESTIMATED COST: Actual costs are unknown at this time. Costs for any single power purchase agreement shall not exceed $260 per megawatt hour.
By Advice Letter 2364-E filed on July 20, 2009.
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SUMMARY
This resolution initiates the implementation of Southern California Edison Company's (SCE) Solar Photovoltaic Program (SPVP or Program). The SPVP is a five-year program adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission (Commission) in Decision (D.) 09-06-049 to spur the development of distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in SCE's service territory, primarily commercial rooftop projects in the one to two megawatt (MW) range.
Half of the Program will be developed by SCE as utility-owned generation (UOG). The other half of the Program will be administered by SCE and developed by independent power producers (IPPs) through a competitive procurement process. This resolution primarily addresses the competitively bid, or IPP portion of the Program (IPP Program), but also addresses some aspects of the UOG portion of the Program. This resolution will specify when a particular portion of the Program is impacted and will use "Program" generally to mean both portions of the Program.
This resolution adopts a competitive solicitation process, eligibility criteria, administration protocols and a standard power purchase agreement for the IPP Program. This resolution also establishes a process to facilitate Program refinements throughout the Program period. Finally, this resolution sets forth annual compliance reporting requirements for the Program.
This Program - given its magnitude, its combination of UOG and IPP elements, and its utility-based administration - is the first of its kind. It is reasonable to expect market, technical and regulatory challenges to arise as the Program is implemented. Accordingly, this resolution implements the Program in a manner intended to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate lessons learned as we gain experience with interconnecting large amounts of new system-side solar PV projects at the distribution level.
