Background
The Commission established the SGIP in 2001 to provide incentives to businesses and individuals who invest in distributed generation (DG), i.e., generation installed on the customer's side of the utility meter that provides electricity for a portion or all of that customer's electric load. (See Decision (D.) 01-03-073.) The program is available to customers of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison Company (SCE), San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) and Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas). The program is administered by these same utilities, except that the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE) administers the program in SDG&E's service territory.
Since its inception in 2001, the Commission's SGIP has resulted in over 1200 completed and on-line distributed generation projects within the territories of the four utilities, and the four utilities have paid approximately $488 million in incentives to these completed projects.1
The SGIP budget was initially $125 million per year, with cost responsibility allocated across the four energy utilities noted above. With the creation of the California Solar Initiative (CSI) in 2006, the Commission redirected the portion of the SGIP budget supporting solar incentives to the CSI program. (See D.06-01-024.) As a result, the SGIP budget was reduced to $83 million per year for 2007 and 2008 to reflect that solar incentives are now funded through CSI. (See D.06-12-033 and D.08-01-029.)
Also in 2006, Assembly Bill 27782 amended Pub. Util. Code § 379.6 to limit program eligibility for SGIP incentives to qualifying wind and fuel cell distributed generation technologies, beginning January 1, 2008 through January 1, 2012.
In a ruling of September 10, 2008, the assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) asked parties to comment on the SGIP budget, details of the continuing operation of SGIP through December 31, 2011, and whether CCSE should continue in its role of administrator for SGIP in the SDG&E territory. Comments were filed on September 30, 2008, by the California Clean DG Coalition (CCDC), CCSE, the National Association of Energy Service Companies (NAESCO), PG&E, SCE, jointly by SoCalGas and SDG&E, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), and UTC Power. Replies were filed on October 7, 2008, by the Commission's Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA), PG&E, SCE, SoCalGas/SDG&E, TURN, and jointly by Bloom Energy and Fuel Cell Energy (Bloom/FCE).
1 See "CPUC Self-Generation Incentive Program, Seventh Year Impact Evaluation," prepared by Itron, Inc., September 2008.
2 Chapter 617, Statutes of 2006.
