4. PG&E's Request for Confidential Treatment of the Settlement Payments from Diamond Foods

In a motion filed contemporaneously with the application, PG&E requests that the amount of the payments it will receive from Diamond Foods be kept confidential, since "making this information public will give other QF entities engaged in Standard Offer contracts with PG&E information regarding PG&E's current strategic approach to resolving similarly situated contested Standard Offer contracts." PG&E also notes that it is required under the terms of the settlement agreement to keep the amount of the payments confidential.

Pursuant to Pub. Util. Code § 583, PG&E has filed under seal a full, non-public set of papers that includes the amount of the settlement payments from Diamond Foods, as well as a redacted, public version of the papers that omits only the amounts of the settlement payments.

We have granted similar requests for confidential treatment of QF settlements in many other decisions, some of which involved keeping the entire settlement agreement confidential. See, e.g., D.00-05-046, 6 CPUC3d at 203-04; D.00-11-041 at 9-10 (citing cases and granting confidential treatment for entire settlement agreement); D.02-06-074 at 6-7. We see no reason to depart from that approach here, especially since PG&E is seeking to keep confidential only the amount of the settlement payments it is receiving from Diamond Foods.