COM/MP1/niz Mailed 12/18/2006

Decision 06-12-033 December 14, 2006

BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Order Instituting Rulemaking Regarding Policies, Procedures and Rules for the California Solar Initiative, the Self-Generation Incentive Program and Other Distributed Generation Issues.

Rulemaking 06-03-004 (Filed March 2, 2006)

OPINION MODIFYING DECISION 06-01-024 AND
DECISION 06-08-028 IN RESPONSE TO SENATE BILL 1

I. Summary

This decision modifies Decision (D.) 06-01-024 and D.06-08-028 to conform the California Solar Initiative (CSI) to recent legislation. Specifically, this decision addresses the requirements of Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) and modifies the Commission's earlier CSI decisions to clarify the maximum project size that can receive incentives, to phase in performance-based incentives more quickly, and to establish time-of-use tariff and interim energy efficiency requirements. In addition, the Commission modifies earlier CSI decisions to clarify that it will no longer collect revenues from natural gas ratepayers to fund CSI. The Commission's CSI budget allocations and megawatt (MW) goals are also modified in this decision to match the CSI budget specified in SB 1. Finally, this decision specifies that solar technologies other than photovoltaic (PV) may receive incentives through CSI, but only if they displace electric usage.