Decision 08-09-045 September 18, 2008
Before The Public Utilities Commission Of The State Of California
Order Instituting Rulemaking to Integrate Procurement Policies and Consider Long-Term Procurement Plans. |
Rulemaking 06-02-013 |
ORDER MODIFYING DECISION (D.) 07-12-052,
AND DENYING REHEARING OF DECISION, AS MODIFIED
I. SUMMARY
In Decision (D.) 07-12-052 (or "Decision"), issued on December 21, 2007, we reviewed and adopted, with modifications, Pacific Gas & Electric Company's ("PG&E"), Southern California Edison Company's ("Edison"), and San Diego Gas & Electric Company's ("SDG&E") (collectively, the investor-owned utilities, or "IOUs") Long-Term Procurement Plans ("LTPP") for the 10-year period 2007-2016, and provided direction to the IOUs on preparing their conformed 2006 LTPP compliance filings. Our primary focus in reviewing the IOUs' LTPPs was to determine whether the IOUs were procuring preferred resources as set forth in the Energy Action Plan ("EAP"), in the order of energy efficiency, demand response, renewables, distributed generation and clean fossil-fuel. Our analysis determined that all three of the IOUs' LTPPs were deficient and spotty with respect to the issue of filling their net short positions with preferred resources from the EAP loading order and particularly inadequate in accounting for green house gas emission reductions. The IOUs' LTPPs showed that the IOUs were, for the most part, filling and projecting to complete their projected net short positions with conventional resources without providing a highly developed analysis to support this strategy. We concluded that, although the 2006 LTPP filings substantially complied with the directives in the scoping memo, the IOUs should be required to conform their 2006 LTPPs through a compliance filing in order to reflect the modifications directed by the Commission in D.07-12-052. We further required that subsequent LTPP filings for the IOUs not only conform to both the energy and environmental policies in place, but aim for even higher levels of performance. D.07-12-052 ordered the IOUs to make their compliance filings no later than 90 days from the date of issuance of the Decision. (D.07-12-052, p. 300 [Ordering Paragraph 1].)
A timely application for rehearing of D.07-12-052 was filed jointly by the IOUs, challenging D.07-12-052 on the ground that the Decision fails to consider need and cost, as required by the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 ("PURPA") (16 U.S.C. § 824a-3 et seq.), in ordering the utilities to maintain their current Qualifying Facility ("QF") capacity over the next decade. According to the IOUs, unless this error is corrected, the Decision exceeds our jurisdiction under Public Utilities Code Section 1757(a)(1)-(2), 1 is not supported by substantial evidence under Section 1757(a)(4), and does not contain sufficient findings and conclusions as required by Section 1705.
We have reviewed all of the allegations of error raised in the rehearing application, and determine that the Decision should be modified. As modified, rehearing of D.07-12-052 is denied.
1 Unless otherwise noted, all statutory references are to the Public Utilities Code.
